3 – Open World
The Legend of Zelda franchise largely consists of a string of games with very linear structures and open, yet enclosed areas. Breath of the Wild has famously returned to the series’ roots of unguided exploration, tracing back to that iconic image of Link crouched on a clifftop, overlooking a vast forest with one shining river. And it has done this exactly right.
Even if its overworld is mostly grassy field, there is always something catching your eye just over the hill. It can be the sparkle of a new ingredient for cooking, the peak of a new Sheikah Tower, or the shadow of a monstrous automaton on an active volcano. Zelda has always featured strange and beautiful landscapes, but Breath of the Wild easily conceals hidden gems within its vast world. Just the other day, I came across a lake shaped like a skull, the rocks around it pale and mottled like bone. Rather than something terrible lurking within its waters, I found great purple flowers swaying beneath the surface, each one of their petals larger than Link himself.
There was no reason for those flowers to be there. But there they were.
4 – No Rules
Link gets an incredibly cool set of abilities this go around, with his powers to control metal, stop time, and ability to summon items via plastic figurines from another dimension. Alongside the variety of weapons found in the world, he gets all of these abilities at the beginning of the game. And there really isn’t anything stopping you from combining all of these things and abusing them to navigate through the land, defeat enemies, or solve puzzles.
I solved quite a few shrines using… unconventional methods. And while the paths I took may have been the ones less traveled by, the game never says that they were the wrong ones.
Perhaps the most famous piece of lawlessness in this game would be the fact that you can rush straight to Hyrule Castle and fight Ganon with nothing but your bare hands. Can Link punch a cloud of Calamity to death? I wouldn’t know since I’m methodically making my way across the provinces and taking back the Divine Beasts. But that is the beauty of this game — there is no right or wrong way to play it.