Where to (officially) play every Legend of Zelda game in 2023

polygon.com:

With The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the horizon, you might find yourself looking to revisit Link’s history. The Zelda series has graced every official Nintendo console over the last (almost) 40 years, been (re)released on Virtual Consoles, and a few games have even been remade or remastered. And that means replaying the games is not exactly easy.

We’re going to focus on the mainline Zelda games here and skip over games like Four Swords, Four Swords Adventures, Tri-Force Heroes, Link’s Crossbow Training, and Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland. We’ll also ignore games on consoles like the Phillips CD-i or the Barcode Battler II.

The short answer here is: If you only have a Switch, you can (or will soon be able to) play 10 of the 15 main story games. The longer answer is: If you have a Switch, Wii U, and 3DS, you can play most of them — for now (more on this below). The longest (and most unlikely) answer is: The surest way to be able to play all Zelda games is to already own physical copies (or find physical copies) of the games along with the consoles they were released on — but, if that’s the case, this guide really isn’t for you (and we are jealous).

Below, we’ll list where you can play every mainline Zelda game in 2023 (for now) and talk about our caveats to the list.

We’re going to stick with the mainline games here and not branch off into the many spin-offs or releases on, frankly, forgotten systems. We’re only going to cover the main 15 games in which Link is the protagonist, and that more or less belong to the official timeline.

We’re also going to keep our options limited to the Wii U (remember the Wii U?), 3DS, and Switch, along with their respective stores, Virtual Consoles, and Nintendo Switch