The video game that changed everything. The impact of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

February 2, 2023

You wake up, it’s dark and you’re lying in a pool. You don’t remember how you got here. You stand up, stretch your aching limbs, walk towards the exit and out into the brilliant sunshine. As your eyes adjust to the light, the world comes slowly into focus... and it is beautiful.

The greens of the open plains contrast with the dark black of Death Mountain, which is streaked with orange lava on the distant horizon. As the sweeping orchestral soundtrack swells, you realise that you can go anywhere and that this is not like any Zelda you’ve played before.

The Leyend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild cover

JUST OVER THE NEXT HILL

What differentiates this game from previous mainstream open world titles is the way it treats this world.

This world is not an empty map with points of interest spread around, or a bunch of markers and checklists that you have to follow and complete. The world of Breath of the Wild is a massive physics playground in which the gameplay possibilities aren’t determined by a sweatshop quest-designer, but rather by the player itself playing around with the multiple systems put in place by the developer.

Finding Lurelin isn’t essential to completing Breath of the Wild. There isn’t a special set of armor hidden there, or a rare item you couldn’t get in other spots. It’s just a picturesque place tucked away into one corner of Hyrule’s vast reaches. Which is what makes its inclusion all the more fascinating, when you step back and consider it. Many things in Breath of the Wild don’t serve a purpose beyond making Hyrule feel rich and lived-in. They don’t fill up a completionist checklist in a quest log. Instead, they simply reward the player’s curiosity.

The entire world of BOTW at the beginning of the game

The freedom this game offers to the player is also provided in the way that every single object in the game responds to the same rules and physics, which is fundamental to the overall design, because it allows players to come up with unique solutions on their own. So Breath of the Wild is not a game about completing challenges in a pre-determined fashion, but about coming up with creative solutions and finding your own path.

In order to accomplish this goal the player is given the power to manipulate water, earth, fire, air, electricity, gravity and momentum in order to solve a huge variety of problems and challenges, and there is certainly a great variety of problems to solve: puzzles, labyrinths, encampments, mini-games, treasure-hunts, mini-bosses, along with survival, exploration and climbing challenges. The best part is that you can use all your tools at all times, so you can use your puzzle-solving tools in combat, and you can use brute force to solve puzzles.

User Interface in the middle of a battle

LEGENDS NEVER DIE

The game is so different from previous entries in the franchise that it feels like Nintendo had this great open-world game idea, and just decided to stick The Legend of Zelda name in it since it had so many similarities. This is the main problem with the game, all the freedom in the world is constrained by a hero that has to follow a predetermined destiny and end his quest at a prearranged point in time.

This weird combination of story and gameplay just doesn’t feel right no matter how hard Nintendo tries to solve the problem.

They certainly tried since they came up with the idea of using memories and flashbacks to tell the story, but all this backstory just feels disconnected from the quest that is created by the players themselves.

Princess Zelda with Link in a in game scene

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is both old and new, it’s evocative of previous games in the franchise while also being wildly original, it’s a wonderful new game that pays tribute to the past, and yet the greatest thing about it is the glimpse into the future that it provides.

GAME-CHANGER FUTURE

It also helps that it is a really engaging and awe-inspiring video game on its own right and easily one of the best open world games ever made. And while it’s constrained by the limitations imposed by the The Legend of Zelda franchise, it nevertheless shows the path to a new world of possibilities that’s yet to be explored.

Such a great game will certainly inspire a new generation of artists and developers who will create amazing works of art of their own, young people who will have to fight their own quest in order to pursue freedom and self-realization to create a better world for everyone to enjoy the same way everyone enjoy one of the best games ever created.