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- Mar 3, 201790% CONFIDENCEfrom the source
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild lands top spot on IGN's 10 Best Legend of Zelda Games of All Time
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild reinvented a 30-year-old series in a way we rarely see. After Skyward Sword offered a slightly more linear, story-driven campaign than most fans were used to, Breath of the Wild readjusted dramatically in the opposite direction. Suddenly you could go anywhere and climb anything in any order you wanted, and goodness gracious was there a whole lot to choose from.
There are plenty of fair criticisms to throw at Breath of the Wild, with common ones being its lack of traditional Zelda dungeons and items. But what’s truly impressive is how much it maintained the heart of a Zelda game even as it altered nearly every system around it. To a certain extent, Zelda has always been about exploration and choice, and Breath of the Wild simply leaned into and enabled those aspects of itself above all else, now making the world a place that would react to those choices as well. There’s just so much to see, so many people to meet and secrets to find hidden throughout this long-since devastated version of Hyrule.
- IGN's ranking of the ten best Legend of Zelda games (updated Feb 2026 for the series' 40th anniversary) puts Tears of the Kingdom first and Breath of the Wild (released March 3, 2017) second[1]
- IGN says Breath of the Wild reinvented a 30-year-old series: go anywhere, climb anything, though it is criticized for lacking traditional dungeons and items[1]
- Nintendo's store page: Link wakes after a 100-year slumber to explore Hyrule, with more than 100 Shrines, over 180 weapons, and an Expansion Pass with two DLC packs, and Switch 2 compatibility[3]
- Metacritic shows a 97 Metascore ('Universal Acclaim'), with 106 of 117 critic reviews positive, including perfect scores from IGN, GameSpot and Edge[2]
References 380% CONFIDENCE
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
- [1]90%ign.com/articles/the-10-best-legend-of-zelda-gamesign.com· Posted May 2, 2023· Starts Mar 3, 2017 ✓· 0% of score
Happened as dated, per ign.com: "…only” came in at number 3 here. When it launched in 1998, Ocarina of Time instantly defined what 3D…"
- [2]75%The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Critic Reviews (Metacritic)metacritic.com· Added Sep 14, 2026· 50% of score
Metacritic's aggregated critic reviews (Metascore 97, 'universal acclaim,' including praise from IGN[1] and Edge) support the pin's framing of Breath of the Wild's outsized critical reputation behind its top ranking on IGN's list, though the reviews page carries no publish date tied to the pin's stored 3 March 2017 date.
- [3]85%The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Nintendo Official Storenintendo.com· Added Sep 14, 2026· 50% of score
Nintendo's own official store listing describes The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's gameplay and content but does not itself restate a release date on the fetched page; it functions as corroborating context for the game's identity within IGN's[1] list rather than a dated source for the pin's stored 3 March 2017 date.
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