What happened to the 2D Legend of Zelda games?

[137beth]

I just looked it up and found out that the most recent 2D game in the main Legend of Zelda series, not counting remakes, is The Minish Cap, released in 2004 (2005 in North America), almost 19 years ago. That's about the same duration of time from the release of the original to the release of The Minish Cap. There have been no new 2D Zelda games for half of the franchise's life. Meanwhile, many new 3D Zelda games have been released.

In the Mario franchise, the "main" series had a similar long gap in 2D games, from Super Mario Land 2 in 1992 to New Super Mario Bros in 2006 (and some people don't consider SML2 to be a "main series" game). But during that time period there were plenty of other 2D platformers in the Mario franchise, including Yoshi's Island, the Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Land trilogies, Donkey Kong Gameboy 1994, Yoshi's Story, the Wario Land series, and Mario vs Donkey Kong.

So what's up with the lack of 2D Zelda games? Did The Minish Cap sell so badly that Nintendo abandoned the original genre of one of its tent-pole franchises? Are there a bunch of 2D action-adventure Zelda spin-offs that I don't know about that make up for the lack of main-series games?

[Mando Knight]

If you're counting New Super Mario Bros as a 2D Mario game, then shouldn't the likes of Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, A Link Between Worlds, and Tri Force Heroes count for 2D Zeldas as well?

[137beth]

I don't know: I never played any of the Zelda games you just mentioned. The newest one I played was Twilight Princess. Are they "3D" in the sense of actually letting you move in 3 dimensions, or are they "3D" in the sense of showing 3D graphics but only letting you move in 2 dimensions?

EDIT:
The issue is that I looked at the Zelda Wiki articles for each of the main series games, and saw that all the games newer than those I played were in the category "3D games." But looking again that category also includes Link's Awakening Remake, which I'm guessing is probably not actually 3D in anything but appearance?

The Mario games I mentioned in the OP (which are also from 2006 and earlier) are all ones I played, so I made my own judgement call to count them as 2D games because you can mostly only move in 2D (I guess you could try to make an argument that 3D movement occurs when you're climbing on a fence in some levels of Super Mario World, or in the final boss fight of Yoshi's Island, but they still are primarily played in 2D). I probably shouldn't have assumed the editors of the Zelda Wiki were using the same standard to determine what counts as a "2D game."

[Zevox]

Yeah, all of those are 3D visually, but 2D with respect to gameplay. 2.5D, as I've sometimes heard it called. The actual last 2D Zelda would thus be A Link Between Worlds, in 2013; or Triforce Heroes in 2015 if you count the spin-offy Four Swords style games.

They definitely declined in prominence though, since well, people just generally like the 3D ones better/buy them in bigger numbers. And now that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kindgom have had massive success even by Zelda standards, well, I'm not holding my breath for any Zelda games that aren't in that vein to get made anymore.

[Razade]

I just looked it up and found out that the most recent 2D game in the main Legend of Zelda series, not counting remakes, is The Minish Cap, released in 2004 (2005 in North America), almost 19 years ago. That's about the same duration of time from the release of the original to the release of The Minish Cap. There have been no new 2D Zelda games for half of the franchise's life. Meanwhile, many new 3D Zelda games have been released.

In the Mario franchise, the "main" series had a similar long gap in 2D games, from Super Mario Land 2 in 1992 to New Super Mario Bros in 2006 (and some people don't consider SML2 to be a "main series" game). But during that time period there were plenty of other 2D platformers in the Mario franchise, including Yoshi's Island, the Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Land trilogies, Donkey Kong Gameboy 1994, Yoshi's Story, the Wario Land series, and Mario vs Donkey Kong.

So what's up with the lack of 2D Zelda games? Did The Minish Cap sell so badly that Nintendo abandoned the original genre of one of its tent-pole franchises? Are there a bunch of 2D action-adventure Zelda spin-offs that I don't know about that make up for the lack of main-series games?

1. Link Between Worlds is a 2D Zelda game, even if its graphics are 3D rendered. That came out 2013, so it's been a 10 year gap.
2. It has nothing to do with sales and everything to do with new hardware. They didn't abandon the genre of the Zelda games, Action-Adventure. 2D isn't a genre. It's a display style. 3D Zelda games have also been around for over 20 years at this point, Ocarina of Time was the most well received game in the entire series until Breath of The Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, so i don't know what you mean by abandoning in the first place. Zelda's been 3D longer than it's been 2D exclusive.

[veti]

Yeah, all of those are 3D visually, but 2D with respect to gameplay. 2.5D, as I've sometimes heard it called. The actual last 2D Zelda would thus be A Link Between Worlds, in 2013; or Triforce Heroes in 2015 if you count the spin-offy Four Swords style games.

Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass have both 2D and 3D visuals, but most of the gameplay (all the puzzle solving, which is the heart of all Zelda games) is 2D.

The answer ties in a lot to Nintendo's platforms, which all the Zelda games are designed to showcase. Minish Cap was, if I remember rightly, the last in the series designed for the GameBoy family. About that time, Nintendo made a step change in its consoles. Both the DS and the Wii, which launched in 2004 and 2006 respectively, gave the user a free-moving cursor, which encouraged a closer-to-3D type of design. (Personally I think the Switch is a throwback in this respect, the controls are much less fun than its predecessors even when they are working properly, but I can't argue with success.) And now Nintendo seems to have abandoned the idea of small screens with limited pixel counts, I can't see them ever going back to the kind of pure-2D games of the last century.

[logan56]

Really don't Know, whats goin on.

[Buufreak]

If you're counting New Super Mario Bros as a 2D Mario game, then shouldn't the likes of Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, A Link Between Worlds, and Tri Force Heroes count for 2D Zeldas as well?

Thank you for making my argument for me, allow me to expand: link between worlds was specifically designed to have a tilted isometric camera so it would be able to mimic link to the past, so much so that all models are built on a slant to resemble to top down view. Those listed above might use 3d models and graphics, but they are entirely top down, 2d style, up down left right types of games.

[Arutema]

The Link's Awakening remaster came out in 2019 with 3D visuals and 2D gameplay. I have no idea why it's not being counted.

I hope they remaster the other Gameboy Zeldas that were built on the same engine next. (Oracle of Ages/Seasons)

[Zevox]

The Link's Awakening remaster came out in 2019 with 3D visuals and 2D gameplay. I have no idea why it's not being counted.

Because it's just a remake, not a new game.