Tears Of The Kingdom Continues To Prove That ‘Open World Zelda’ Is A Best-Selling Formula

Nintendo has announced that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has now sold 19.50 million units, just shy of that 20 million milestone.

Launched on May 12th, 2023, the game has now effectively sold nearly two-thirds of what Breath of the Wild has managed in the space of about five months or so. That’s insane. For the sake of clarity, Breath of the Wild is now sitting at 32.85 million units.

Looking at other games in the franchise for comparison, Ocarina of Time has sold a total of 14.04 million units across N64 and 3DS, Link’s Awakening has managed 12.51 million across its multiple variants, and Twilight Princess has sold 10.02 across its release on GameCube and Wii U.

Another rather fun way to look at it is that Tears of the Kingdom has now sold more than the original The Legend of Zelda (7.29), Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (4.38), and Majora’s Mask (6.82) combined. Phew!

Here’s an overview of some of the franchise’s most popular entries and their associated sales figures:

Looking at the breakdown of sales even further, the game has expectedly sold exceedingly well in territories outside of Japan:

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Sales

Japan: 3.51 million
Outside of Japan: 15.99 million
Total: 19.50 million

It’s no secret that Tears of the Kingdom is a pretty darn good game. In fact, we gave it a score of 10/10 in our own review, calling it “a glorious, triumphant sequel to one of the best video games of all time”.