Best Xbox Series Games Like Zelda, Ranked

The Legend of Zelda is one of Nintendo’s most prestigious flagship properties. While it’s the portly plumber who really blows the doors off in terms of sales and marketability, the Zelda series has established itself as a high bar of quality with almost every one of its 21 mainline releases to date launching to widespread critical acclaim.

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is, in fact, still considered by many to be one of the best games of all time. So, it comes as no surprise that third-party developers would want to emulate that success and design their games around the time-tested formula. It’s fair to say the Zelda series has consistently reinvented itself in its nearly four-decade lifespan, so all iterations will be considered in considering the best Zelda-like games currently playable on the Xbox Series.

8

Blue Fire

Gravity Defying Dungeons

Systems

Released

February 4, 2021

Developer(s)

Robi Studios

OpenCritic Rating

Fair

Publisher(s)

Graffiti Games

Blue Fire is a tricky recommendation because it was divisive with critics, and it does make a poor first impression. Once players start to level up their protagonist, gaining some cooler traversal and combat abilities, the game is a blast right up to the end, especially for fans of 3D platforming.

The game is more aesthetically reminiscent of the Zelda series than the actual gameplay mechanics. Those thematic touches do extend to the variety of enemy types and some puzzle-based, chest-filled dungeons with towering bosses waiting at the center, so there are plenty of familiar tropes for fans of the series.

7

Minit

Time-Looping Exploration

Released

April 3, 2018

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

Minit is a game that wears its influence on its sleeve, and that influence is retro Zelda games like the NES original. The hook to Minit is that the adventurer is burdened with a cursed sword that kills them every 60 seconds in real-time. Once that time elapses, progress will be saved but the adventurer will return to the nearest bed they’ve discovered and have to begin their loop again.

This gives a roguelike feel to the experience, consisting of a series of environmental puzzles that must be solved in a minute to advance to the next area. Followed by exploration to secure the next spawn point. It’s a brief adventure, well worth undertaking for any fans of classic Zelda.

6

Hyper Light Drifter

Modernizing The Classics

Released

March 31, 2016

Developer(s)

Heart Machine

OpenCritic Rating

Mighty

Publisher(s)

Heart Machine

Hyper Light Drifter sets out to modernize those retro top-down adventure titles like the original The Legend of Zelda — and it largely succeeds in this goal. It adds a pace and flair that energizes the now-dated game design to make it more befitting of current standards, and at its peak, combat is very fluid and satisfying.

The problem is, it kind of falls between delivering that nostalgic hit and matching the same kind of thrill as modern action roguelikes such as Hades. Hyper Light Drifter doesn’t quite live up to either of those comparisons, making it another recommendation with caveats, but it definitely has its dedicated fans.

5

Genshin Impact

JRPG Of The Wild

RPG

Action

Adventure

Gacha

Open-World

Released

September 28, 2020

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

Genshin Impact almost shamelessly borrows from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with its world, traversal mechanics, and elemental puzzle solving such as freezing water to walk on ice. But, the free-to-play JRPG does at least make some great use of these mechanics in a way many other successors dropped the ball on.

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It has that sense of exploration that made Breath of the Wild such a huge success; players actually want to explore this world and are consistently rewarded for doing so. Genshin Impact also adds its own distinct flourish to the formula with a rich RPG system of classes and unlockable characters that allow players to adapt the play style to suit them.

4

The Plucky Squire

Meta-Retro Nintendo Adventure

Released

September 17, 2024

Developer(s)

All Possible Futures

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

The Plucky Squire is a special little game that really toys with its concepts and pays affectionate homage to a number of classic NES titles, one of the most prominent being The Legend of Zelda. The story takes place predominantly within a storybook that is chronicling the tale; rearranging or replacing words in the text to change environments is a key part of puzzle-solving.

The game is continuously shifting the goalposts with Jot, the eponymous squire, being transported outside the bounds of the book into the real world. There are a bunch of competing mechanics tossed into the meta adventure, but the core exploration and top-down sword-swinging combat of Jot will certainly give players that classic Zelda feel.

3

Immortals Fenyx Rising

Exploring The Greek Pantheon

Released

December 3, 2020

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

Depending on who’s asked, this entry is perhaps interchangeable with Genshin Impact, which is certainly a deeper system but does border on pay-to-progress, so it probably comes down to individual tolerance and restraint. Outside Genshin Impact, though, Immortals Feynx Rising is the most complete Breath of the Wild successor on the Xbox platform.

The similarities are so apparent that it drew criticism from the die-hard Zelda community upon its release, but it has since taken up its place as the best alternative for gamers who don’t own a Nintendo Switch. Everything is here, right down to pretty much the exact same puzzles. There’s nothing to not recommend to Zelda fans, but it is definitely an imitator rather than an innovator.

2

Death’s Door

Haunting Adventure

Released

July 20, 2021

Developer(s)

Acid Nerve

OpenCritic Rating

Mighty

Maybe a little bias showing, but Death’s Door is a fantastic action-adventure game easily worth its relatively brief runtime. The design pays homage to The Legend of Zelda series and is perhaps most reminiscent of the DS era of games such as The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

Combat and exploration are familiar with a sword, bow, bombs, and hookshot serving as the main tools. However, Death’s Door very much has an identity of its own, set in a beautifully realized gothic world; the player is a reaper tasked with collecting the souls of those who won’t go willingly into death. Death’s Door is full of distinct wit and character and some spectacular boss fights to cap off each act.

1

Tunic

Cunning Like A Fox

Released

March 16, 2022

Developer(s)

Andrew Shouldice

OpenCritic Rating

Mighty

Publisher(s)

Finji

Another indie release that wears its influence on its sleeve, Tunic carves out an experience that is uniquely brilliant in its own right. The core appeal of Tunic is the steep learning curve and the complete lack of hand-holding. It’s the classic Zelda experience with some Soulslike difficulty for modern audiences.

The complete lack of instruction means that figuring out the game is as much a part of gameplay as the actual dungeon crawling and exploration. That can be understandably off-putting to some players, and while online guides will greatly simplify those frustrations, that comes at the cost of some of the wonder and ‘wow’ moments from actually unearthing the secrets. For fans looking for a modern recreation and a truly challenging Zelda experience, Tunic is still the best option on the Xbox Series.

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