How much of an impact did Breath of the Wild actually have on the gaming industry?

It’s funny because it actually wasn’t the first of its kind to hit the market. It was actually a game 2 years earlier by the same company (at at least one of the companies that helped develop BotW) called Xenoblade X. Xenoblade X had really long loading times whenever you fast traveled or started up the game, but other than that, whenever it was done loading, the world was seamless and was wholly accessible wherever you went once you had access to a skell. You could even argue the latter is superior in a way as the world was full, you had airborne capability among other things. But I digress.

I watched US unveil the Immortals Fenix Rising game today and was looking at the comments. Of course it was filled with a bunch of dickheads calling it a breath of the wild clone but it did get me thinking. I feel like more often than not whenever I do hear about an open world game, people hold it to a near impossible standard set by said game and often call teams that take inspiration from it copycats. How much longer will it be before that type of stigma is gone? Or will it ever be? I equate BotW’s open world to something like Ocarina’s Z/L targeting that became a staple of 3rd person RPGs and action games from then on.

A bit of an off the wall example but I wish some people would realize and separate the difference between taking inspiration and flat out copying. Way too many schmucks these days are so quick to dismiss some real gems just based on something that’s become a golden standard. Really off the wall example but It illustrates my point perfectly.


There’s a popular show/manga out east that came about in the late 80s/early 90s called Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. The men were muscular and square bodied and knew lots of martial arts etc. A majority of what he’s written, by these people that are opening their fat mouths, could be considered a massive ripoff of another manga called Fist of the North Star. Look at this:






And before you say it, both predated DBZ’s popular Namek and Vegeta Saga where all the fists are flying.

At the end of the day, I just wish people would recognize greatness and not demean those who want to implement things it did right into their work.


So my original question stands. Was Breath of the Wild another one of those benchmark games that changes a genre forever? Or is my thread a product of recency bias?