›The Legend of Zelda‹ is such a well-established subject of study within Game Culture Studies that, as early as 2020, Zelda Studies was proposed as a sub-field of Digital Game Culture Studies (Cirilla 2020, 2). The term refers to two aspects that also characterise the volume planned here: on the one hand, games from the ›The Legend of Zelda‹ series are to be the subject of study; on the other hand, the question of how and by what methods digital games and gaming cultures are researched is itself at the center of attention.
As game studies and game culture studies are, by their very nature, often inter-, trans- and even anti-disciplinary in orientation, this volume aims to move beyond the classic three-way division of qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods approaches typically found in methodological texts. Similarly, no absolute distinction will be made between in-game, reception and development analysis. The volume aims to encourage researchers from various disciplines to apply their subject-specific methods to ›The Legend of Zelda‹, even—or perhaps especially—if these methods do not fit neatly into the traditional categories.
The ›The Legend of Zelda‹ series is particularly well-suited to such an introductory methodology volume because it…
• … has helped shape a significant period in the history of digital games, from 1986 to the present day. This opens up opportunities to examine, for example, aspects of past or current game design, or the impact of different hardware on the production and reception of games (cf. e.g. the reception of ›Skyward Sword‹).
• … is one of the most influential and successful series (Brandes/Gödl 2025), meaning that much of what relates to the critique, evaluation and reception of digital games can be observed paradigmatically through it.
• … covers a variety of game mechanics and formats. 2D or top-down adventures are just as much a constant feature of the series as linear titles (from ›Ocarina of Time‹ to ›Twilight Princess HD‹) or, more recently, sandbox 3D titles (›Breath of the Wild‹/›Tears of the Kingdom‹).
This diversity is also evident in previous research on ›The Legend of Zelda‹. For example, alongside anthologies on philosophy (Cuddy 2008) and psychology (Bean 2019), the series has also inspired works on game mechanics (Smilie 2020; Bosboom et al. 2023), music (Bradford 2020; Rone 2020) and ludo-narration (Matuszkiewicz 2019). Despite, or perhaps precisely because of, the rather rudimentary plot, the series appears open to a variety of approaches, such as postcolonial perspectives (Hemmann 2021; Hutchinson 2021) or contributions on gender (Nicolas 2023; Pugh 2018; Stang 2019). At the same time, the popularity of certain titles is also reflected in the research literature. ›Breath of the Wild‹, ›Majora’s Mask‹ and ›Ocarina of Time‹ are much more frequently the subject of academic work, whereas older or lesser-known titles such as ›Oracle of Seasons‹ or ›A Link Between Worlds‹ are, at best, mentioned in the context of other titles (for example, in the volumes by Cirilla/Rone 2020; Cuddy 2008).
The aim of the planned volume is to bring together, in the form of a methodological introduction, the variety of approaches that can be applied to ›The Legend of Zelda‹ as a case study of digital games and gaming cultures. The planned volume is therefore intended to illustrate methods from various disciplines as applied to the ›The Legend of Zelda‹ series and – where this has not yet been done – to demonstrate the suitability ofthe respective methods for the study of digital games. The individual contributions are required to first provide an introductory explanation of the chosen method before subsequently applying it.
Both data collection and analysis methods are welcome. The volume is open not only to a wide range of methods, but also to disciplinary cultures and discourses. The following breakdown is therefore intended merely to illustrate and clarify that the volume does not follow any fixed or loose dichotomy or trichotomy, but rather allows for and encourages different focuses and categorisations. Some methods can theoretically be classified into several categories; what is important for submissions is that it is clear which focus is placed on the method and how it is understood. The following methods, for example, but not exclusively, are conceivable for the volume:
Ingame Analyse
Spatial analysisLudonarrative analysis
Music analysis
Player analysis
Forumanalysis
Participant observation
Developer analysis
Interviews
Qualitative methods
DiskursanalysisInterpretation (e. g. hermeneutics)
Sequence-analytical image hermeneutics
Quantitative methods
Standardised surveys
Mixed methods
Grounded Theory
Qualitative content analysis
Disciplinary methods
Didactic approachesMethods of the Digital Humanities
Big Data AnalysisText MiningNetwork analysis
Methods relating to human-computer interaction
Eye-Tracking Analysis
If you are interested, please send an abstract of no more than 280 words by 20 July 2026 to kontakt@phillipbrandes.de, carolin.puckhaber@uni-muenster.de, and anja.goedl@student.uibk.ac.at. The final papers should not exceed 40,000 characters (including spaces). Please use a standard file format (.doc, .docx, .odt). Abstract and paper can be written in Englisch or German. We expect to provide feedback by 3 August 2026. The deadline for submitting the full papers is 15 February 2027. Publication of the papers is planned for late 2027/early 2028.