The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is an action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo, released for the Nintendo 64 in April 2000. A direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, it follows Link in the parallel world of Termina, where a cursed moon is set to crash in 72 hours. Built around a repeating three-day cycle, mask collection, and pervasive melancholy, it is one of the most structurally inventive and emotionally distinctive games in the Zelda series.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask was directed by Yoshiaki Koizumi and Eiji Aonuma and released on 27 April 2000 in Japan, developed in under two years using assets from Ocarina of Time. Link arrives in Termina while pursuing Skull Kid, who has stolen the powerful Majora's Mask and used it to summon a falling moon. With only 72 in-game hours before the moon strikes, players must use the Ocarina of Time to reset the cycle, retaining knowledge and key items across each loop.
Where Ocarina of Time was a linear hero’s journey, Majora’s Mask is a game about time, repetition, and the lives of people who cannot be saved. The three-day cycle structures everything: side quests, NPC schedules, dungeon access, and emotional arcs unfold on a fixed clock, rewarding players who observe and remember. Link collects 24 masks across the game, several of which transform him entirely — into a Deku Scrub, a Goron, a Zora — each with its own moveset and emotional backstory. The four dungeons are fewer in number than the series norm but more elaborately constructed, each tied to a region in crisis.
Majora's Mask is unusually dark for a Nintendo title. Its world is populated by characters facing loss, grief, and inevitability — a couple separated by circumstance, a father searching for a missing son, townsfolk who have given up. The masked moon’s unsettling face looms in every outdoor scene. Critics and players who initially found the time mechanic stressful have, over two decades, come to regard it as one of the most daring design choices in Nintendo history. Slant ranked it the greatest video game ever made in their 2020 list. A 3DS remake, Majora's Mask 3D, was released in 2015 with updated visuals and revised mechanics.