Does any franchise have as rich of a history as Zelda?

I just got my new copy of the Legend of Zelda Arts and Artifacts. It literally came out today. And then I realized something. The original Zelda came out on February 21st, 1986. No pure coincidence there. This new book is a follow up to Hyrule Historia which came out on 2011. Excellent book, and I'm sure this one will be as well. It's also at least 30 percent bigger haha. But anyway, reading these books make me realize how rich of a history the series has. Does any other franchise compare, SW? Let me know your thoughts.

Does lord of the rings count?

The Witcher I guess since its based on the books

No.

MAYBE Mario.

The Witcher series does due to it's rich history games & books.

Zelda's story isn't really that rich.

Metro or Witcher series.

Mario? Sanic?

No.

In books maybe. In video games? Only three main entries.

Do you know the difference between story and history?

Pac-Man?

Star Wars.

Flight Simulator started out back in 1979 on the Apple II under the Sublogic label. MS later bought it and continued the series until Flight Simulator X. Although MS disbanded the Aces team that made FSX, the game was sold in store shelves as late as 2013. The current version is now licensed by Dovetail games and is known as Flight Simulator X for Steam.

Lockheed Martin sells its own official version of FSX known as Prepar3D.

I don't think there's any other game in history that spawned its own cottage industry of paid (and expensive) addons like Flight Simulator did.

http://www.flightsimstore.com/

Final Fantasy

Ultima. Elder Scrolls. Halflife. Portal. Mario. Shinobi. Splinter Cell. Star Trek. Tetris. Simon Schama History of Britain. The Wire. YS series. Crazy Taxi. Dungeons And Dragons e.t.c...

Warcraft.

My boy does. There's another book that came out recently that also just focuses on the art.

Maybe Metal Gear?

I mean there's Final Fantasy.

Elder Scrolls, Total War, Mario, D&D RPGs, WoW, Final Fantasy

Halo has thousands of years worth of lore so Id go with that.

A convoluted plot that still hasn't finished after 30 years and is not fully understood even by its most die-hard fans doesn't make it rich.

If you're arguing for Zelda, you don't exactly want to use this criticism lol

Each Zelda game has a standalone story that can be fully understood without touching the others. They share themes, characters and lore but there's seldom a direct connection between them.

Metal Gear tries to tell a compelling story like a series of novel and nobody understands shit.

The timeline exists and is the very definition of convoluted

And they mostly made it to appease the myriad of fans who kept fiending for one. Doesn't change the fact that even if there is a timeline, Zelda games take place decades or even centuries apart. They share a superficial connections but nothing important. Skyward Sword took place something like over a thousand years before OOT. They share themes and characters but plot wise one game doesn't really need the other and they don't follow the same narrative.

The legacy of Zelda games certainly enjoys continued and extolling praise from gaming fans & press, but I find very little within the canon of its universe deeply significant. I've never found any aspect of Zelda's setting or the history of events to carry much weight. But Zelda has never been a franchise where lore/narrative was inherently vital or significant to the game itself. A sufficient contextual purpose is provided, but little else.

Warhammer is the first that comes to my mind.

Command and Conquer is pretty awesome when it comes to history, especially when you get into the theories of the Red Alert and Tiberium timelines being crossed/the same (we did see Kane at the end of Red Alert :D ). There's tons of story, lore, videos, and characters and of course games and most (excluding the most recent entries) are all pretty damn good.

Then there is, of course, the Star Wars franchise. There are obviously some really good entries in the series, but the I'd have to pick either the KOTOR series or Jedi Knight series: the former for being amazing RPGs with great stories, characters, and settings set in an era of Star Wars 3000 years before anyone is familiar with; the latter for taking a relatively unknown hero (Kyle Katarn) that ran parallel to so many things and characters of the movies we know and love and making great action games of them with incredible stories.

The Witcher games & books.

Also Metal Gear even though it's been going on since 1988. It's the games you play for its weird story and cinematic.

Witcher, Halo and maybe Star Wars.

I need the book so i cant look at art and artifacts of her highness Farore.

Nobody has mentioned Fallout yet? FOR SHAME!

Are we judging the "history" of a game franchise by how thick an art book is?

It's great to have history along with rose tinted glasses while you look at the new zelda.

Uncharted

Cosmic Spacehead. Zelda is the same game over and over.