Marking the biggest change of direction in the franchise in years, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild redefines the concept of “open world,” bringing an immense setting filled with the most varied forms of exploration and interaction. Also changing the format of its dungeons, combat mechanics, narrative structure and even the sound design of the series, the title represents a triumph in renewal, resuscitating the energy of elements long fossilized, without fear of subverting them when necessary .
The very name of the game already points to its most important component: the vastness of Hyrule’s wilderness and the sense of freedom tied to it. While in previous titles, mainly Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, the central area serves to connect the different regions visited, here there is only a single giant environment: as a true open world, cities, mountains, plains and rivers are all interconnected without any loading screens separating one from the other. But unlike other examples of the genre, such as Skyrim, moving around the world is one of the main focuses of the game’s design.
The key to opening the exploration in Breath of the Wild is the ease of movement. It is possible, for example, to climb almost any structure of the environment, regardless of its inclination, as long as the energy bar of the protagonist withstands the effort. So, if in Skyrim, the player often needs to circle a mountain until they find the road that allows climbing to the top, here, no matter the direction of the rock, they need to just jump towards it and start to climb. After getting to the top, the player, again, just need to jump off and use Link’s glider to quickly go back down or explore other locations by flying over them in search of secrets. This ability to climb any natural elevation, house, tower or whatever else is in the path, and go back down even faster, makes Hyrule an open field for exploration, making the action inviting and practical. The point is not only that the player can go anywhere at any time, but that he can do it quickly and without much difficulty.
Not that the game removes all the hindrances to locomotion – after all this would be detrimental to notions of difficulty and progress – but it certainly makes it more intuitive. One of the obstacles that can still be encountered, for example, is Link’s own energy bar, which, at first, makes access to certain places difficult, although it can be improved over the course of the game. Another complication comes from the influence of nature: rain makes surfaces slippery and, consequently, makes climbing more difficult.
Link’s interaction with his surroundings is one of the main attractions of Breath of the Wild. It is possible, for example, to cut trees to make firewood. Use firewood to set up a campfire, and use campfires to cook herbs and mushrooms collected in a forest or, perhaps, the meat of some hunted animal. And then use the food to improve Link’s stats momentarily. That is, the game not only adheres to the open world genre but also to that of survival. Thus, the player must now take into account the natural conditions of the environment and how they affect Link: if it’s too cold, for example, he’ll need to carry a torch instead of a sword, find a coat, or just eat something… spicy (because the game still retains the absurd sense of humor of the franchise). Besides that, wooden weapons catch fire – which increases the damage they cause, but decreases their durability – and fire can spread through the woods, hurting both enemies and Link himself. During lightning storms, lightning strikes a tree, but also any metal sword or armor that the protagonist or monsters may be using. In short, nature is not only in the name of the game, but is one of its main systems.
This ends up making experimentation one of the greatest attractions of Breath of the Wild. Once a metal is known to attract lightning, for example, a player may have the idea that, instead of attacking a monster with an axe, simply dropping it at the creature’s feet, running off and letting nature do its job will be even more effective. In the same sense, as metals also conduct electricity, instead of looking for specific objects to bridge the energy needed to solve a puzzle, the player can build it from their own weapons.
This does not take into account the possibilities opened with the new powers available to Link – all acquired at the beginning to allow the player to immediately have the means to solve any puzzle and visit any region, including go straight to face the final boss if they want. A power with a lot of potential for experimentation is the magnesis, which allows Link to levitate metallic objects: it is possible to make a distant chest fly to the protagonist or even drop it on the monsters’ head, create stairs with boxes to reach higher places, hold a boomerang while it comes back, locking it in a spinning state, or even creating flying structures and float across the scenery over them, looking like Magneto.
Another power that opens up innovative modes of interaction is the stasis, in which an object is locked in time. In addition to its obvious use in dungeons – like using it to climb a ramp during the brief seconds that a gigantic sphere is paralyzed at the top – it is possible to attack the locked objects, storing energy that is released at once when the effect goes away, making them fly very far. Creative players can use this ability both to skip stages of a puzzle (throwing a ball straight to its destination instead of guiding it through a suspended labyrinth), for example, but also as an unusual means of transport, by holding on to a chest as it is thrown over mountains. Meanwhile, cryonis – the power to create ice towers on water surfaces – has its use more restricted to puzzles, though they are still varied, being building bridges over water, raising structures and submerged objects, or serving as a platform in waterfalls.
With this arsenal, the dynamics of Breath of the Wild differs completely from that of its predecessors. The puzzles no longer have a single solution, exploration becomes inventive – no longer a matter of using the right equipment in the right place – and the structure is no longer a walk between temples with new equipment being gradually acquired in the process. Now it has become a trip without a predetermined destination, based on a continuous discovery of what is possible to do with the tools already at the player’s disposal.
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