Some legends write themselves. We had to wait for it a little longer than we had hoped for, but the day is finally there. We got our hands on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and went back to Hyrule to discover Link’ newest adventure. It’s nothing like any other Zelda game on the market, it offers more freedom, more weapons, more enemies and a lot more fun. Time to Switch on the game and tell you all about it!
Wake up Link
This new adventure starts with a strange voice waking up Link. Here, you’re immediately witnessing one of the bigger changes in the universe of The Legend of Zelda. For the first time ever, the game supports voice actors. The voice of a young woman (Zelda?) wakes you up from your 100 years slumber and forces you to leave your cave, stepping foot on what’s called The Great Plateau. This forms your first introduction to the new world of Hyrule, or at least a version of it, we haven’t seen before.
Unlike other Zelda games, you’re not forced to play a long tutorial, explaining everything to you. Instead, the game gives you instant freedom, giving you the ability to go wherever you want on The Great Plateau without ever explaining how a camera or lock system is used. It’s great to see that the creators went for a more soft tutorial approach, leaving enough freedom to the veteran players without getting too complex for the newcomers. Nintendo created an open world for you to explore, only inhabited by an old man showing you where you should go. At first, this seems to be the only character around but you’ll meet a lot of others during your quests of course.
A brave new world
Since the moment I was able to finally play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I started to explore the new open world. It’s the biggest innovation in the franchise and yet again it’s what takes the game back to its original roots the most. In the first Legend of Zelda game, you were free to go where you wanted to go, if something was too hard to beat, you just returned to another area. This is exactly what Breath of the Wild does and it works extremely satisfying.
The world itself feels a little empty at first but the more you wander around in it, the more small details you’ll discover. There are animals jumping around, making noises in the forest, the light hits the trees just right, it starts to rain, a heavy wind is pulling your hair. Details like these really result in an absolute immersion, even when you’re playing the game in Handheld mode. It’s something you’ll need to get used to during the first couple of hours but this new Zelda world is a fantastic place to be in. Again, it’s pretty empty but the details make up for a lot and something also tells me that it won’t stay this empty once I leave The Great Plateau.
This truly is your adventure
Perhaps the best thing about Breath of the Wild is that this truly is your adventure. Sure, you have the main missions, telling you more about the story. And sure, you can clear the Shrines to unlock new powers but how and when you tackle these challenges is entirely up to you. My order of shrine completion won’t be the same as yours and the weapons I used or the tactics I thought of, won’t be the same. This is the strength of the game. It offers you all the tools you need but you’ll need to connect the dots. I’m already a big fan of the new combat system, introducing a wide variety of weapons to experiment with.
In the game, you’ll find plenty of weapons like an axe, hammer, sword, torch and more. Besides that, you’ll also find spears, shields, bow, arrows and even other gear in the world. Most of those are just lying around somewhere on the map while other, better ones, are locked inside a chest. This chest opens when you defeat all the enemies in the area. Again, how you defeat those is entirely up to you. Will you use the environment to your advantage or do you use your weapons? I was already amazed by the crazy amount of freedom you get and it seems like there are plenty of solutions that work for one problem.
Early Conclusion
My time with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a time where I once again fell in love with the franchise. It feels like fresh start and yet it still feels like the perfect homecoming. This is the right direction for the franchise and the amount of freedom you get is just amazing. Going wherever you want, using whatever you want to defeat enemies or solve puzzles really is the way a Legend of Zelda game should be. Sure, the world still feels a little too empty but I can’t wait to meet interesting new characters and go to thrilling new places, I already know the game will continue to surprise me. I’ll keep you posted of my progress once the review goes online! Time to Switch and play.
