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Most of the scenery in BotW is set dressing, but when we see a single rock standing alone from the rest, or trees appearing in neat, unnatural rows, we immediately take notice because they may represent a puzzle that will reveal one of the valuable seeds. The Korok seed puzzles teach players to study the landscape, to discover the supernatural within the natural – just as we notice standing stones or crop circles when we go out walking in the countryside. They don’t take up much time or effort, they don’t add much to the experience other than a brief bit of fun, and there’s always someone that complains that they’re pointless.” How the world speaks to the player “These represent those little oddities on the side of the road that draw your eye and get you to make an unexpected visit. “And then there are the Korok puzzle tourist traps,” Raine adds, referring to the game’s little environmental puzzles, where players are rewarded with magic beans for, say, putting apples in front of holy shrines. Pit stops are the places you’d get petrol or check the map on a road trip, and in the game, those are the towers, which provide context for the larger world beyond your directed goals. On a road trip, Raine elaborates, destinations are the big cities you know you’ll visit along the way – in the game, these are the main four dungeons. “It often feels like you’re putting away your phone, opening up the paper map, and setting a destination.” “BotW’s level design draws a lot from the idea of the road trip,” says Lena Raine, a level designer at Ubisoft who previously worked on Guild Wars 2.
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Gentle encouragement and correction gives players a reason to keep going as they set self-directed goals (get to Death Mountain or find out what that weird rock formation on top of the cliff is) and figure out how to overcome their own limitations.
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“The game has the confidence to trust players to be the stewards of their own experience.”īotW doesn’t tell players what to do, it shows them how to do what they want to do.
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“One of my favourite things about BotW is how totally and gleefully free the experience is,” says Joel Burgess, world director at Ubisoft Toronto, whose past work includes Fallout 4 and Skyrim. So BotW tells you that it is a game about exploration and leaves you largely undirected apart from a few interventions from a mysterious old man. It’s not a tutorial, it’s the whole experience encapsulated into a two-hour mini-adventure.īreath of the Wild introduces players to several of the major enemies in a highly controlled environment. The player is subtly informed about waypoint-setting and quest markers, and pointed towards the end goal – Hyrule Castle. It has several enemy encampments to teach you about combat, different climates that introduce you to stat-boosting food and clothing, and four shrines that mirror the four divine beast dungeons, which provide the main body of the challenge later on. Instead of a conventional tutorial mission, this small region is an intricately designed miniature version of the entire map. When you set out, you are contained within a raised area called the Great Plateau, from which the rest of the world is inaccessible until you earn the paraglider item. The first example of Nintendo’s philosophy of gentle guidance is at the very start of the game. This is how it works: The world in miniature
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Rather than a daunting and intimidating unknown, the world is a series of breadcrumb trails ready to be discovered and followed. For many developers, the idea of making a 100+ hour game that’s almost entirely player-led is a terrifying prospect, as the lack of overt structure can be overwhelming and dis-incentivising for the player.īotW, however, employs a range of quiet, clever techniques designed to help players navigate the environment. One-and-a-half times the size of open-world trailblazer Skyrim and 12 times the size of Twilight Princess, it provides a vast terrain to explore with barely any restrictions beyond a few hours of subtly enclosed preparation. Released on Wii U and Switch in March, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BotW) is the biggest Zelda title ever made. As the sweeping orchestral soundtrack swells, you realise that you can go anywhere and that this is not like any Zelda you’ve played before. The greens of the open plains contrast with the dark black of Death Mountain, which is streaked with orange lava on the distant horizon. As your eyes adjust to the light, the world comes slowly into focus – and it is beautiful. You stand up, stretch your aching limbs, walk towards the exit and out into the brilliant sunshine. Y ou wake up, it’s dark and you’re lying in a pool.