Earlier today, I posted a clip from my current playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild which consists of Link just standing in place, doing nothing, looking at a waterfall and listening to the breeze. This is something I found myself doing in real time while playing. I fought some moblins in ruins outside Hateno Village, walked up a hillock to see a waterfall in the distance and just… stopped. And then I clipped it because that felt noteworthy. Lots of games make me want to move forward, but Breath of the Wild made me stop and smell the breeze.
I don’t know about you, but I find that worth investigating.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out four years ago in 2017. Since then I’ve done two complete playthroughs of the game and am currently doing a third because that trailer (you know which one) gave me a craving. And as I walk through the familiar wilderness of post-apocalyptic Hyrule once again, I find myself genuinely surprised by how much of the experience hits the same way it did four years ago.
You see, Breath of the Wild, at least to my mind, has always been one of those games whose appeal centers on its sense of mystery and discovery. So when I’ve fully completed the game, discovered all its secrets, puzzles, and shrines (twice) it stands to reason that the game would lose some of its ability to captivate me, right? Apparently, that’s not the case, and I cannot understand why.
I don’t know what it is about Breath of the Wild that makes me forget its undeniable “gamey-ness” but as an experience it always feel organic (for lack of a better word) rather than something made by people for your entertainment.
For all the intricacies of its lore, its place in the larger (totally made up) The Legend of Zelda timeline, the grandiosity of its themes, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a game about salvaging the part of you that once knew love, and coming back up to fix your mistakes. It’s about finding your fight and taking it to the forces that took everything you held dead. And that feeling transcends the clinical art of game design, existing in a space I can only call magical.
The mystery and melancholy of Breath of the Wild is not in the tangible elements of its story or its gameplay loop; it’s the ineffable heart of the experience. You could learn everything the game has to teach and uncover every secret it has to hide, but exploring the ruins of a once glorious civilization, marking the graves of your friends who died in a battle you lost 100 years ago? That will always be sad. Similarly, a beautiful vista will always be beautiful no matter how many times you see it.
You could walk up that hillock and look at that waterfall every day, and it will always feel the same. It’s just vibes.