For some perspective, here's the character schedule of Hyrule Warriors.
When Hyrule Warriors launched, there were 13 playable characters.
Of those 13 characters, 3 were from Ocarina of Time, 3 were from Twilight Princess, 2 were from Skyward Sword, 5 were technically original, but 4 of those 5 are present in other forms throughout the series history.
There were 3 more original characters, totaling 8 technically, that were in the game, but not playable until a month after release.
No other game had any representation out of the box.
The first paid DLC that had a playable character launched 2 months after the initial release. The character was from Twilight Princess, bringing the total to 4.
The next DLC that included playable characters cane out 3 months later, 5 months after the launch of the game, and included 2 characters from Majora's Mask.
A month later, another DLC pack made another original (technically) character playable.
The initial Hyrule Warriors didn't see any new playable characters until the launch of Hyrule Warriors Legends.
Hyrule Warriors Legends came out 18 months after the original game.
Out of the box, it included 5 characters, 3 from Wind Waker, 1 more from Majora's Mask (now at 3 characters), and 1 more original (now at 10). These were not available separately for the base game for 3 months after the launch of Hyrule Warriors Legends (21 months after the launch of Hyrule Warriors), and were paid DLC.
Medli from Wind Waker (now at 4 characters) came out for free a month before the separate availability of the initial new Hyrule Warriors Legends characters.
Marin from Link's Awakening came out the same day as the 5 Hyrule Warriors Legends characters.
There were now a total of 7 games with representation (including Hyrule Warriors itself).
The next DLC character, 1 from Spirit Tracks, came out 3 months after the release of Marin; 6 months after the release of Hyrule Warriors Legends; 2 years after the release of Hyrule Warriors.
The final DLC characters, 2 from A Link Between Worlds, came out a month later.