

A bunch of my friends from college kept telling me I’ve gotta play it, espectially because among them the only other game they all played was R6 Siege. I wasn’t too enthused considering all the discussion I can find of the game says it sucks now. When they eventually got me to play it I found it… ok.
Based on the demographics of those friends, I’d say it’s mostly popular among people who, if you asked them if they were really into games would say yes, but if you asked them for any “hidden gems” they’ve come across would give suggest highly recognizeable non-AAA games like Helldivers 2 or Balatro. Partly because their definition of “really into games” is that they play games that have an esports scene (even if their competitiveness goes only as far as playing in ranked matchmaking).
Sound pretentious for me to put it that way but I find that to be the pattern.
From seeing discussions among those Zelda fans (which to be clear I am not one), the issue is that the mainline games are now a completely different genre, but treated as though it’s the natural progression of the series.
The classic zelda games are primarily puzzle games, with a little bit of combat and intricate hand-crafted exploration to spice it up a bit. The modern zelda games (BOTW & TOTK) are exploration games with puzzles to spice it up. If you were a classic zelda fan, the niche genre you loved used to have regular releases by a major developer and now doesn’t.
Plus, there’s a “all my homies hate skrillex” effect here; the series is massively more popular now, but the newcomers have a different idea of what makes a zelda game a zelda game. By sheer numbers they dominate a community that is now reshaped by their presence. In other words the zelda fan community is itself a different genre.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t played that much of the series. Link to the Past I didn’t care much for, Links Awakening (new one) I honestly hated, and BOTW I liked but had a couple issues with. All I’ve written above is based on passively seeing a bunch of discussion.