The Legend of Zelda is a fantasy action-adventure franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka at Nintendo, beginning with the 1986 game for the Famicom and Nintendo Entertainment System. Its hero, Link, wanders dungeon after dungeon with sword and shield, and across the series’ many incarnations he is bound again and again to Princess Zelda and to the Triforce, the sacred relic of the goddesses that the warlord Ganon covets.

It is among Nintendo’s most enduring series, celebrated for opening game worlds to free exploration and for puzzles that turn a room into a lock and a key. Every era gets its own legend, its own Hyrule, its own Link — but the green tunic and the sword always return, because the darkness always does.