The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hasn’t even been out for a week but it’s already on track to become one of the most popular video games of 2023. Over 500,000 copies have been sold so far, videos about the game have racked up over 600 million views on TikTok, and… searches for ‘Zelda’ on Pornhub have spiked.

The porn site released its Zelda insights earlier this week, which revealed that in the days leading up to the game’s release, searches for the term ‘Zelda’ shot up – on May 7, the term was 357 per cent more popular than compared to an average period. On May 12, the day of the game’s release, this rose to 399 per cent (although at midnight on release day, Pornhub’s traffic was down 2.3 per cent compared to normal – presumably because people took a break from wanking to actually play the game).

The upward trend continued following the release: May 13 saw an increase of 759 per cent, followed by 1,362 per cent on May 14. By May 15, ‘Zelda’ had skyrocketed to a 1,477 per cent increase in popularity on Pornhub.

The term ‘Legend of Zelda Rule 34’ saw a huge 22,067 per cent increase in popularity compared to an average day (if you don’t know what Rule 34 is, Google at your own risk). Other popular terms which saw a spike in popularity were ‘Link and Zelda’, ‘Legend of Zelda Hentai’, and ‘Zelda Cosplay’. 

Pornhub also revealed which characters people were most horny for. Searches for ‘Purah Zelda’ saw a huge 42,257 per cent increase in popularity compared to an average day – meaning that searches for Purah actually outstripped searches for Zelda, who was the second most popular character. Paya was the third most popular, while Link was fourth. The Bokoblins – yes, those goblin-y little monsters – came in, (worryingly?) at number nine.

Zelda has always been a popular franchise when it comes to porn. Back in 2017, around the time that the Nintendo Switch was launched, searches for the terms ‘Link’ and ‘Zelda’ on YouPorn increased by 164 per cent and 102 per cent respectively, while data published by PornHub in 2019 found that Zelda was the most-searched video game character of the year, beating Lara Croft to the top spot. Impressive x