What does Breath of the Wild do that most open-world games do not?

Open-world are to today what FPS games were to yesterday. A boatload of them sadly they are seldom good. Even the biggest ones like GTA and Assassin's Creed are stagnating. In comes The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game widely believed to be the best open-world game on the market if not simply the best ever.

I haven't played it a lot but what does that game do that most games don't? What did it bring to the table? Did it change the approach developers will have towards open-world games?

Discuss away.

It introduced a physics system that governs the world and player and then gives the player runes and items that allow them to manipulate this to a lot of different emergent outcomes. Many other open-world games feel constrained in design in what the developer desires you to do. Nintendo instead creates a rule-set, gives you the ability to play with it and have it interplay with others, drops you into the world and says, "have at it".

Now while I can't speak as to what it does differently from other open world games, I can share a (personal) reason why Breath of the Wild worked where previous Zelda games did not.

It worked because BOTW took inspiration from the original Zelda, and dumped the stagnant formula that began with A Link to the Past on SNES and had stuck with the series since then. It became a game about exploration of a vast world rather than a guided tour from one point to the next. This is something that had been sorely lacking from the series, and its return was easy for series fans to praise.

Does this make it a good example of an open world game? Don't know. Does it make it fun? Maybe, that's up to you.

Is it worth trying out for yourself? I definitely think so.

If you have the wolf Link Amiibo you can have him follow you around and help take out enemies and woodland creatures. Sorry Bambi, it wasn't a hunter that took out your mama.

Oh, also, what the others said above.

@MirkoS77: this

And climbing. There is no limitation to what you can do or see from the onset of the game (well at least after the great plateau). Your only limitation is your skill.

I've played a lot of open-world games, haven't missed many relevant one's. Fallout 4, Fallout 3, Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Just Cause 3, Far Cry 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn etc. and I have to admit that this one has a pretty rich and physics-driven open-world. It's probably definitely up there as being one of the best.

It's very easy to get sidetracked because there's a lot to do it in it and plenty of important growth-based collectibles to find, as well as various enemies and treasures. You never feel like you've seen the same thing twice. What Breath of the Wild does then other open-worlds don't is "choose your own adventure" There are 4 dungeons, but even they are optional. Yes there are shrines and koroks, but they are optional. Wanna go straight to the final boss? You can. Wanna swim across that river? Go ahead and try. Make sure you got stamina for it. It really is your choice on what you do.

Yea the implementation of the vertical game was definitely brilliant. Allowing a way up and down easily really removed the handcuffs even more.

There's a point to it being open world.

The game world itself guides you on your journey. Not through marked paths, or map markers... but by landscapes and vista's and monuments nudging the player along.

...and it has been said before, but the mobility link has in this game goes really well with the interactivity of the world.

It was a hard adjustment going back to other open world games with mountains.

As others have said it had some good fresh takes on open world.

But as a direct result, it also has the same weaknesses as other open-world games.... low enemy variety, only way to make it harder is to scale them.

Dungeons and more scripted areas of the game were too short and not very well done. (clever dungeons as they were in terms of moving parts... but beyond that very boring.).

The next Open-World Zelda needs far more focused segments inbetween the sandbox... I felt like I was wassting my time on collectables to get stronger for what? there was barely any content grinding for...

Even the games only valid stealth segment was like 2 rooms... as apposed to the entire Garuda base in OOT...

Climb mount everest and fight a dragon while flying on wind only to.... open up a shrine! YAY....... another shrine......

Sorry, but the game was great, but it lacked something....

But... Assassin's Creed.....

I guess there is no skill involved in that though.

So many things. But the things that stick out for me the most are:

1. Climb anywhere. Most open world games you can either go anywhere but the game world is mostly flat, or there are artificial walls everywhere and you have to work your way around. This game you can really go anywhere.

2. Freedom. The main story line can be completed anyway you want or not at all. This sounds odd, yet it is somehow amazing. You do not care to beat the Divine Beasts? Ok we are cool with that. You want to do everything? Cool. You really get to play this game with way you want to.

3. Great Amibo support. You can use all of your Amibos (I have 40) every day to get lots of Arrows (ice, fire, shock, regular), crafting mats, and ancient cores. So if you are like me and do this almost every day, you end up with a crap ton of mats and can just run around going ham for fun.

I would say those are the main things. Some other games have some of these things, but I feel that Zelda simply nails them in a way that no one else has.

Mobility and dynamism. I did another playthrough of TW3 after playing BoTW and you know how many times I wish I could just bail off a cliff and paraglide down(Skellige...). Same with everything being a climbable surface.

People have already mentioned the systems built into the game leading to dynamic, emergent gameplay. GAF has a whole thread dedicated to it. *Spoiler Alert!

Not a fan of how fast the weapons break. I think somebody has already fixed that on Cemu I'll be looking forward to playing it again once emu is full speed.

climbing, thats about it

You can discard weapons without having to use the menu.

You can also cut down trees.

I has a crafting system that isn't too burdensome, not like games like No Man's Sky. Most resources I acquired on the go so when I needed them they were already in my inventory. I also like the look and feel and location diversity. Games like Far Cry 4 for instance, the landscape despite its topographical make-up feels the same in almost every section of the game, same foliage and same look and feel, Far Cry Primal though did much to help with this, was said to re-use the same topographical map, but different areas felt different in how they looked a lot more. Anyhow, for Breath of the Wild, each area feels different, has its own beauty, has different resources to find, makes exploration better that way.

More importantly, at least on Switch, it's a top-notch open world game that you can play on the go.

@funsohng: you also can't immediately go to the end boss of any AC game.

You could immediately speed run it to Ganon.

1. It is an open world game that respects the player. Rare in the AAA space.
2. Meaningful implementation of physics
3. Tools, both runes and items, often allowed for multiple applications
4. Problems can often be solved in multiple ways, giving plenty of room for improvisation

For me, it's that there are no invisible walls at all (with the exception of the obvious outermost borders). I never feel like I'm leaving Hyrule while playing.

All I hope is, I hope we see more systems driven games in the future.

@Maroxad: That's a great video. :)

Sell Nintendo consoles

I was replying just to the climbing part.

@MBirdy88: I do agree that the game didn't do as great a job with the story-based parts. And yeah, shrine discovery can only be so thrilling after you've discovered dozens.

But, the reason I keep playing it is just that: discovery. There's no lack of things to find or little surprises that delight. I'd just like Nintendo to develop some more meaning for it all in the next game.

Be Zelda.

Bore you to fucking death...... Sick of hearing about this boring shallow game.

Its like most open world games, but bare bones things to do and zero markers to tell you where to go. It's like playing a ubisoft game with no missions and no map really, collect things, and find things, and collect things, and find things. The novelty of mini dungeons wore off after the first 10 and the realization there was more loading screen time to access that content then actual content.

This will be an odd one for me, but sometimes TOO MUCH FREEDOM. In a game that mostly lacked a larger enemy to overcome, the more interesting part of this would have been the environment, but you can hand glide down from anywhere, there really are very few dangerous places and places that are hard to access.

Also GTA isn't stagnating, i'm pretty sure its still even after 5 years a popular MP game... and the narrative/character completely obliterate anything that BOTW offers and its still and incredibly fun action game and works well in an open world. Even elder scrolls/fallout aren't stagnating, they are fun for different reasons.

GTA V is still the best open world game ever made.

I can't think of many open world games that have nostalgia going for them- but Breath of the Wild definitely does.

It also gives you way more freedom and a perfect sense of progression. You are always getting better in Breath of the Wild- whether it's upgrading yourself, finding items and learning how to use them, or getting better at the game mechanics yourself as the player.

It's deserved punishment for choosing to fast travel so much. You're missing out on all the content by fast traveling.

I didn't fast travel too them, most of them I completed faster than entering/exiting, especially those stupid combat mini dungeons. I don't think that most of them provided a substantial game play, they just felt like busy work once you found them.

@NathanDrakeSwag: lmfao did you just start gaming this gen?

I can tell you what it does for me. I'm a guy that loves trekking. Usually on my holidays I try to travel to natural places where I can walk and explore for hours or even days with nothing but a backpack on me. Zelda provides me that. Other games also do that but not on the same level. Zelda took it several steps further.

I would give you a serious response but I've seen you call the piece of shit Skyrim one of the best games before so I take it as a compliment when you disagree with me.

@NathanDrakeSwag: Says the guy who loves Uncharted. ?

Sorry I couldn't resist.

The physics were very good

Physics and using the environment to your advantage.

@phbz: he also had Battlefront as his most anticipated game of the year in 2015. He said it was going to blow every shooter out of the water. ???

@MBirdy88: I'm very much in agreement with you there. I did love my time with Breath of the Wild, but the game definitely relied on you making your own fun and cut short of going much further.

it doesn't do anything that other games haven't done better

@waahahah: The map is one of my favorite elements of Breath of the Wild.

It's not just the lack of map markers but the incentive to seek things out simply by their appearance on the map alone. Whether it's temple-like structures, pools of water, strange cliff formations or clusters of foliage, it's a game that I found invites me to interact with the map more. You find all sorts of things like spontaneous shrine quests (my favorite quests in the game), rare horses, mini games and people of interest out in the world - something you could pass by if you're not attentive enough with the map.

I certainly found this to be the case over GTA which I feel doesn't quite encourage the player to actually explore its open environment much at all... This is partly thanks to a GPS system telling you exactly where to go, the lack of interesting formations within dense urban areas and that much of the most meaningful things to do in the game are highlighted in question marks or meaningful map markers. Outside of the awesome police chases, I think GTA 5 really hasn't utilized its open world structure as successfully as BoTW has.

Have you played it?

@93BlackHawk93: Play games? Don't be silly. That's what Youtube Let's Plays are for. ;)

I mean, GTA you can completely explorer, they just don't reward you for it or made the entire game about it. There are TONS of things to explore, even just to read the ad's or going hunter. There are just tons of little interesting things to do. Then there is also the missions that allow you to do missions which are far more structured. And lots of little side activities. A lot of these things aren't designed to push the plot forward but reward players with the experience of finding them, just like botw, but again it actually has a plot/story/characters/cinematics/grandiose missions/complex activities to partake in... and then there is GTA online... GTA is NOT stagnating and is likely still the benchmark for sandbox open world games.

Thats why I consider BOTW an open world but without a plot. Its essentially a sand box based on the non essential activities that aren't meant to push the plot forward, the dungeons are such a small part of that and don't always feel like part of the main game. Zelda was fun but it it felt like too much of it was built on side activities that GTA has excelled at, and barely any plot to push forward. I would say the major difference is the asthetics of BOTW were more warm and gameplay relaxed which is probably the major differences. The relaxed/calm nature of the game is what allowed you to pursue the sights that you otherwise ignored in GTA.

@waahahah: I don't think GTA V is stagnating. I also don't agree that it's the benchmark for sandbox open world games because of its narrative. I'd argue its main mission design is actually not great at sandbox gameplay in how restrictive your choices are.

In actuality, I think the narrative and cinematic structure of the game is at odds with the open world design. Too many of the main missions are overly linear and ball down to a lacking 3rd person shooter. With all the mechanics and variety of vehicles at your disposal, you'd think the mission design would accommodate this abundance of awesome variety but instead you're mostly doing one thing in linear order. There are improvements over GTA IV with the introduction of multiple characters but this is often limited to three rigid choices. It's not a player's choice. It's not a good sandbox, really. (At least not in the main missions)

It's telling when half-way through the game you play that mission as Franklin where you need to rescue Michael from the meat factory and it plays out like a corridor shooter with little to no variety in how you tackle this mission and it's totally isolated from the rest of the map and its mechanics. GTA Online, I think is almost a better use of the sandbox than the single player game and I think part of that is thanks to the rigid narrative taking precedence over the actual sandbox.

The side activities in GTA V are very well defined. Things like golf and tennis had a huge amount of effort to them but they were also completely detached from the core mechanics. On the flip side, the BoTW equivalent used the core mechanics to invent shield surfing, archery, bowling and flying mini-games that utilized the core mechanics you actually use in the game. GTA V's stranger missions have a stronger narrative focus and create some interesting stories (see the Epsilon mission. That mission is funny!) But the gameplay? One mission, 'Exercising the Truth' has you literally running up and down... Certainly not a great use of a sandbox either.

Breath of the Wild's side content may not be as contextually meaningful but it has you doing some pretty neat stuff inside the sandbox. Take, for example, missions like Eventide Island, Hunt for the Giant Horse or the Trial of Thunder. They have no narrative but in return you get unique game-play opportunities that still use the core mechanics in meaningful and memorable ways AND can be tackled in a multitude of ways using all those mechanics at your disposal - like a sandbox should do.

probably the most balanced response so far.

Zelda is not better than Skyrim... not by any stretch of the imagination, its different and does 1-2 things better, but ultimately ... Skyrim had far more to do that felt WORTH doing, alot more replay-ability and just flat out better at being a Sandbox RPG.

GTA5 is just legendary at this point, yea its sandbox basic features stagnated alittle with newer itterations, but its still top of its class, and offers alot more than Zelda does.

I feel zelda has been put on a completely ridiculous pedestal .

@MBirdy88: Can you explain how GTA 5 is a better sandbox game than Breath of the Wild? Because personally, I don't think GTA 5 is a good sandbox game.

When it comes to climbing, Link can climb pretty much any surface. When climbing there is no set path.

Zelda has better dungeon design, better more varied open world, way better mechanics, stronger combat, stronger enemy design, more variety in weapons, significatnly stronger interactivity, better replay value due to multiple ways issues can be tackled.

Skyrim has a character creation, better music and world building.

The thing about Zelda is... it is an actual sandbox game, as opposed to a freeroam game like GTA or Skyrim. I dontl ike using sandbox a lot, but BotW actually deserves it. Instead of giving you a big world with a lot of activities to do in it (like a themepark), the game instead gives you a toolkit and a world that appropriotely responds to your actions. In most games, the systems are there to serve the content. In BotW they took the opposite approach, the content was there to serve the systems.