The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a year and a half old, as of this writing. I purchased the game on day one for the Wii U since I was in no kind of decent financial position to get a Switch at the time. I must have played that version for over a hundred hours, barely bothering to get any of the Divine Beasts, preferring to get lost in the gameplay mechanics and seemingly infinite wilderness playground that Nintendo had created for me. Later in the year, Santa brought a Switch into my household with another copy of the game, and my second playthrough began as if the first had never happened, taking new directions and exploring new spaces, progressing further and sinking even more time into the endeavor. I finally completed the story on the Switch, gaining momentum after the second Divine Beast and powering through to the end, by disregarding my ever-growing list of side stories and quests. It was at that moment that I finally put the game down, probably the one I spent the most time with in 2017, and headed off to discover other worlds.
But to walk away from this version of Hyrule is to not really leave. The world keeps begging for you to return. The portability and ease of use of the Switch certainly plays a big part in keeping me invested. It’s so easy to play in small chunks, whether at the laundromat or on lunch breaks at work. And there’s always something new to find, something to do that keeps tugging on my attention span, some rock formation in the distance that I want to climb or the possibility of an undiscovered shrine or korok seed somewhere just around the next bend.
I haven’t found Breath of the Wild to be the physics playground that many have, however I’m constantly amazed by what players are accomplishing in the game, as I’m reminded frequently from the game’s very active player base, a constant presence in reddit’s r/gaming or on the splash pages of Youtube. Nintendo built a massive playground for us to play in and explore, and each player can accomplish that in their own way, in their own time. There’s nothing pushing you forward other than your own set of goals and what you want to accomplish. My side quest list shows no signs of decreasing, every time I knock one or two off, another few seem to come right up in their place, and I frequently pay little to no attention to it anyway as I explore territories that are still new to me.
The game has been critically lauded, and there’s nothing I can say here that adds anything new to that conversation, but my experience with most games is that once they’ve been beaten or completed, my motivation to return from them drops off precipitously, to the point that I rarely, if ever replay games or return to their worlds. In the few instances that I do, I piddle around aimlessly, then lose whatever sense of interest I had pretty quickly. Breath of the Wild continues to bring me back, even in small chunks. I don’t have to spend hours in a row with the game anymore, but it occupies a place in my heart that’s comforting to return to, asserting a sense of wonder that has not yet begun to decay. I can’t see any signs that it will happen anytime soon.
Matt