By [ad_1]
The varied and interesting design of Hyrule is brilliant and makes The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild so engaging to explore.
2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has become the most successful Zelda game of all time, not in the least because of its gameplay. With all the freedom an open-world game can offer, there are plenty of reasons to keep playing beyond defeating Calamity Ganon. With players constantly discovering new things about the game, it still stays fresh despite its age and a sequel on the horizon.
The reason people keep coming back to Breath of the Wild lies in just how much is packed into it — and cleverly so. There are multitudes of feedback loops that encourage people to keep playing, and the flexibility of gameplay means that no two players are guaranteed to find the same thing the same way. This game, by design, is interesting and stimulating, pulling players in for more play sessions long after Hyrule is saved.
There is plenty to do in Breath of the Wild, which is important in an open-world game. You can have the biggest sandbox possible with the best graphics, but if there’s nothing in there to play with, it gets old quickly. Breath of the Wild solves this by not only packing the game full of things to do, find and play with, but having these things be different enough to appeal to different players and providing a variety of tools to interact with these things.
Players can hunt for shrines or Koroks, go from encampment to encampment or boss to boss fighting, and hunt for better weapons. There are fields to comb through, forests to explore for ingredients to cook, animals to feed and much, much more. Breath of the Wild allows players to explore the game however they like, whether that’s going to every tower or bumbling around in the dark, defeating the Divine Beasts or ignoring them to go straight to Calamity Ganon and hoping that stick you just found will be enough to take him down. The list of things to do is virtually endless.
What allows for this is the brilliant design of Hyrule and how it is laid out. The world is full of tall mountains and plateaus, deep gorges and valleys, rolling hills, snowy plains, fiery mountains and vast deserts. It’s visually interesting and piques interest, but traversing it is fun as well.
Trying to figure your way up a sheer cliff face when you don’t have the stamina for it is a challenge early on and encourages hunting shrines to earn more stamina — or alternatively, finding the right ingredients to boost your stamina enough to make it. Not only does finding the tallest point and paragliding off of it never gets old, but it also provides a chance to enjoy the view, drop down on an unsuspecting foe or find the next new thing to aim for.
Hyrule’s design draws players in and keeps them exploring. There’s always something peculiar and attention-grabbing on the horizon, and players will learn early on that even things as small on rocks can be hiding something interesting underneath, from tall trees containing eggs to just about everything hiding Koroks.
A group of trees in the distance could be a Korok puzzle or a place to get ingredients. Those rocks that look cracked could hide a puzzle, treasure chest or shrine. That giant rock in the middle of a field or forest could be a formation or a mini-boss that drops goodies upon defeat. The game’s design choices are subtle and appear natural, which keeps players immersed while also indication that something interesting could be there.
Even activating the towers to reveal more of the map doesn’t alter this sense of exploration — it actually feeds into it. Checking the map and seeing a space where there are no markers suggests this is a place that hasn’t been visited yet, which means figuring out where that is from your current position and checking it out. Along the way, there’s more to find as the terrain between you and your destination dips, climbs, changes and gently nudges you towards interesting things.
It could take hours to get from point A to point B, but that time does not feel wasted. While there are fast-travel options, wandering the world yourself is simply more rewarding. Traveling Hyrule in Breath of the Wild doesn’t get old, and there is enough there in terms of collectables and varied environments to keep players coming back time and again.
About The Author
[ad_2]
