Poor Link. He’s gone from 2D to 3D to cel shading to dark and gritty. He’s been all over the place.
Actually, come to think of it, the only thing that’s changed about him since Ocarina of Time is the way he looks. The core of all of the Zelda games has remained unchanged for some time now, but it looks like Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind Link, has implied he wants to rectify this for the next iteration of the franchise.
According to him, something new is coming.