I’ve finished a lot of Zelda games in my time, but I can’t count Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom among them. In the former, I got stuck near Hyrule Castle no thanks to a bunch of Lynels; and in the latter, I made it all the way to Ganondorf but was underprepared for the battle. Years later, I would get myself unstuck on BotW only to have no desire to keep playing. As for TotK, I just don’t…care? I’m not sure what the feeling is exactly. “Ennui” might be the best term to use. I made the choice to go forth with the Ganondorf battle primarily because I had grown weary of the game and its vast, tri-level world. Though, I’ll admit that as long as both games remain unfished, it does give me an excuse to return to them. But will I ever?
A couple weeks ago, The Duck wrote about her own change in opinion over both these titles, having once favored their open worlds but no longer. I get it, though I’m not sure where I personally stand on BotW and TotK now, as I’m not sure I had a strong opinion over the series moving to the open-world concept to being with. Generally, I like the freedom open-world games provide. In both BotW and TotK I enjoyed exploring more than anything; in ToTK that included the rather boring Sky Islands and the rather annoying Depths. But I’ll admit that it’s tougher now for me to jive with open-world games, especially when I can’t envision discernable paths forward.
That’s just a fancy way of saying that need to (and like to) have a little bit of structure when playing open-world titles. For whatever reason, structure eludes me in open-world Zelda games. In both cases, what happened is that I eventually saw a path to “the end,” and I took it because it gave me something on which to focus. Everything outside of the path fell away as unimportant because my goal had been set. But that’s not the way these games work. BotW and TotK almost demand that players experience everything in them before hitting the final boss because they need to become experts in everything that the game offers first. That’s to say, it benefits players to clear most if not all of Hyrule’s secrets/problems for the sake of experience and upgrades before they can watch the credits roll.
But is that just “video games,” you ask? Well, sure. But the whole idea behind open-world games is freedom to play however one wants, and it comes with the expectation that players won’t be punished by their own choices in the end. That’s where the open worlds of BotW and TotK failed me. I’ll admit that in both cases, I knew that I had rushed into their endgame scenarios, and I didn’t have to arbitrarily set points-of-no-return. But I had also done everything right before then as far as successfully following main story quests, gathering allies and decent gear along the way. In the end, however, the games tacitly said “you’re not ready,” and all I figured was that I’ve have to spend another 100 hours playing until I was.
With Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I like principle of opening up Hyrule to endless exploration and opportunity. I found both exciting and liberating in different ways, and I sunk plenty of time into each outside of their main stories. And yet, the thought of returning to them remains quite the chore. The feeling isn’t like that which I harbor towards Twilight Princess – that was a labor of love. These open-world Zelda games, while richly detailed and beautiful, ask a lot of my precious time, which I’d rather invest elsewhere.
Lede image captured by author during gameplay of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (© Nintendo).
I commented on Duck’s article with agreement about losing enjoyment in TotK (though I was able to get lost in the wonder of exploration in BotW). I think these games need to hit at a very particular point in someone’s life. Like, if I was a kid and BotW was one my first games, I’d be totally entrances. I wouldn’t be able to put it down. The game would become more about curiosity and less about objectives. And perhaps to enjoy a game like BotW or TotK, I have to prepare my mind for that kind of experience. Heck, right now I’m playing Myst III which demands that I get lost in its world so I can fully understand the puzzles laid before me.
In the end though, when it comes to Zelda, I’d much rather see a straight-forward adventure like the older games.
Yeah, that’s a good point. It really speaks to the fact that not all open-world games, along with those who prefer to play them, are not created equal! There are some younger folks in my life who I know have spent A LOT of time getting lost in BotW, especially, and they love it. Honestly, I don’t know if they enjoy the older, linear Zelda games as much, because they don’t offer as much freedom of choice.
Maybe once they grow up, they will see the light, ha!
In any event, BotW and ToTk the have their place in the Zelda universe, even if they depart from its formula…or don’t add much to it, as the case may be. If a 3rd open world Zelda game happened to along, I know I’d be inclined to skip it.
I feel the same way about structure; I, too, need structure and goals in my games, whether these goals are my own idea or the game’s. In BotW, at least, my goal was to see everything, so that kept me invested. But in TotK, I had already seen everything of interest because Hyrule was almost exactly the same as it was in BotW (and the Sky Islands and Depths grew dull pretty quickly). So much of the time, I felt I was just playing the game because I like to finish most things I start and not because I really wanted to.
Keeping Hyrule as-is, even with the additions of two new “levels” and new gameplay mechanics, was Nintendo’s most egregious error in TotK, for sure. That’s *not* the way to go with open world games for exactly the reason you stated – no one wants to waste time retreading the same territory again! I think I spent more time exploring in TotK than in BotW, which is a further knock against me ever wanting to return to it. The Zelda games really are at their best when they offer a structured approach while allowing players to move towards goals at their own pace. BotW and TotK the missed the mark on the former, which then hurt the latter, unfortunately.