The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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Lets get Breath of the Wild’s demand that you take it seriously out of the way first, in case you haven’t been following the interviews and narrative surrounding it in the last year or so. Breath of the Wild is, without question or debate, the hardest Zelda game of the last twenty years. In fact, as an “old” who literally grew up playing the original Zelda games on NES and SNES when they came out, I’d argue it’s the hardest Zelda game period. The first twenty minutes or so are pretty low key — you can kill the scrub bokoblins and other minor enemies you meet without much trouble using nothing more than a tree branch picked up off the ground.

But once you leave the initial learning spaces and venture into more typical zones, you’re probably going to die. And, like, you’re probably going to die a lot, honestly. Often without much warning. Or at least I did, and still do, if I’m not careful.

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That respect radiates outward. The puzzle logic in Breath of the Wild feels legitimately logical, and smartly physics-based. There are optional shrines scattered throughout Hyrule that act as mini puzzle dungeons, and almost without exception, they’ve all been a lot of fun to figure out. After more than two dozen of them, Breath of the Wild also doesn’t seem out of ideas.

And so far, this is the thing I’m most struck by. Breath of the Wild has so far managed to integrate a steady stream of new ideas and twists on existing Zelda concepts, including weapon durability and variety. Example: boomerangs are now dual use tools that can be wielded as melee weapons or thrown in traditional Zelda fashion, but if you do the latter, you’ll need to be quick and catch it on the way back. Every weapon I’ve found so far is a finite tool as well, so I’ve learned not to get too attached.

But even with these and other, bigger changes, Breath of the Wild has never stopped feeling like a Zelda game — and what’s more, it seems poised to establish itself as the first current, vital feeling Zelda title in longer than I can remember.

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You'll see the game over screen a surprising number of times, and very early. Veterans of the series may be used to playing through conventional adventures with nary a single Game Over, but you will die in this game, often. You simply hit continue and try again, with the game's frequent autosaves ensuring that you often lose less than a minute of progress, sometimes merely seconds - you can save manually, too, with one save per 'user' on the system, mimicking the Wii U approach of giving each user their own unique save data.

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This is a game, ultimately, that suits your playstyle, whatever that happens to be. We played the opening with others in the room doing the same, and each individual tackled the tasks at hand in different ways. What was common across the different systems, though, was the fact that the game was drawing players into its world.

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For example, while a player near us was setting off plot points, we explored some nearby woods, protected two strangers, triggered an unexpected game-wide collection quest, and tamed our first horse. After seeing off a surprising variation on a foe we saw a group of four wild horses; at first they saw Link coming and scarpered, so we began to crouch and sneak. We had no idea what to do when we reached one (again, no 'tutorials' as such) but followed button prompts. Even after harnessing the horse and 'soothing' him, to build a bond, he still bucked and occasionally rebelled. We eventually learnt that if you find a stable you can board your horse there and register them as yours, giving them a name and in the process ensuring you can whistle them over (as long as they're in hearing distance). All of this just happened, as we explored, experimented and talked to locals.

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As it's an important topic, we'll also touch upon performance. We're yet to play a retail build of the Wii U entry, but were concerned by the performance of the E3 demo. On Switch we have better results and a generally solid 30FPS, which holds true for lengthy periods. There are occasional dips, however, normally for a second or so, that seem to trigger when the game is streaming assets or - less commonly - when particular effects kick in. Generally we've been pleased with how it runs, all told, as it's enabled us to get immersed into the experience.

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This is a game we could write and talk about almost endlessly, as in its early stages it has truly drawn us in - Breath of the Wild blends true open-world mechanics with the touches and fairy dust that makes Legend of Zelda games so special. It's an intoxicating combination, and the exciting thing is that this has just been an early taste; we can't wait to experience all of what it has to offer.

The adventure is only just beginning.

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Enemy artificial intelligence is also very impressive, as groups try to mob you or run back to claim dropped weapons. One fight with a giant in a forest saw a tree get knocked down with an errant bomb blast, at which point the monster decided to pick up the fallen trunk and start using it as a cudgel.

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These are the big takeaways from the game’s opening hours, but as impressive as the scale and rejection of formula is, it’s the little details that really stick in our minds. For example, when it starts raining it becomes much more difficult to climb because it’s slippery, while campfires go out because of the rainfall. You can judge which way the wind is blowing from the grass, and if you have an Octo Balloon (from killing an Octorock) you can tie a bomb to it and have it float towards higher up enemies – and use a Korok Leaf to waft it on its way.

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Having just completed it, we couldn’t help but think of Horizon Zero Dawn while playing Breath Of The Wild, and how simplistic it now seems compared to Zelda. You also have a bow in Breath Of The Wild, but you have to account for how arrows arc through the air, rather than it just acting like a low-tech sniper rifle. Boomerangs have to be caught manually on their return and the best way to defeat the skeletons that appear at night is to chop of their head and punt it into a river, like a goalkeeper trying to make a clearance.

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You always expect a Zelda game to be good, but the attention to detail and willingness to innovate in Breath Of The Wild is well beyond our expectations. We wouldn’t suggest that any of this necessarily has anything to do with the Switch though, as the game was originally designed for the Wii U. As such the graphics are certainly not a match for the likes of Horizon, with often very simple geometry and textures. The frame rate sometimes becomes a little syrupy too, and there’s obvious object pop-in if you look for it.

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We’re doing our best to find faults here but the truth is we’re hugely impressed. We already know some things we can’t talk about here, and other secrets that have been hinted to us by Nintendo. At this stage we’d shocked if this didn’t turn out to be the best Zelda since Ocarina Of Time. It may even surpass it, and since many still regard that as the best video game ever made it becomes almost impossible to overstate just how good Breath Of The Wild is.

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