Explaining why the Zelda Franchise has Revolutionized Gaming
Tears of the Kingdom achieved universal acclaim, but we need to dig into why it’s a masterpiece, and how this affects the future of games.
We’re not just calling out the substantial revenue growth driven by the game here. Yes, they made a rumored $700 million USD within just the first 3 days of release, which is about 10 million copies worldwide. Of course Nintendo execs would be crying tears of joy.
But we need to dig deeper to understand what made 2017’s Breath of the Wild (BOTW) and 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK) so great, and why it’s impacted so many other games down the road.
Explaining Zelda to a Beginner
The Legend of Zelda is obviously one of the most popular game franchises of all time. Without even including TOTK, >52 million copies have been sold since that famous 1986 The Legend of Zelda game first launched off for the SNES. It’s #37 on the top 50 highest-grossing game franchises of all time, but that’s probably climbed into the top 30 ever since TOTK released.
If you take a look at any “top games of all time” list, you’ll (very often) find a few Zelda games in there. Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Majora’s Mask are seasoned regulars which make those lists.
Across most of the games from the franchise, the main gameplay consists of an open-world action-adventure style, with players role-playing as Link, the main protagonist throughout the series. The objective for most games does vary, but is usually one of:
Saving or finding Zelda from the primary evil within the story.
Saving the land of Hyrule (or another land) from the primary evil.
The lore is quite vast and complicated, but it can be (extremely) simplified to the birth of the Goddess Hylia by the three “Golden Goddesses.” The latter are known as the main elder Goddesses who created the land of Hyrule, and the younger Hylia was tasked to look after the land. Hylia is the original protector of the Triforce, which is the “ultimate source of power” within the world. The Triforce consists of three forces: courage, power, and wisdom. Link, Zelda, and Ganon (the most common antagonist) are the usual mainstays for the franchise, and they symbolically represent courage, wisdom, and power respectively.
Now, I won’t get into the details of the chronological timeline, or more about the lore. That literally requires a whole article (or a series of articles) itself to explain how the whole The Legend of Zelda timeline works. This is probably a great place to read about it. I’ll jump right into how the latest instalments of the franchise — BOTW and TOTK— absolutely revolutionized it.
What Breath of the Wild Revolutionized
Open-ended gameplay
Open-ended in “gameplay terms” means being able to beat the game in any type of way. It gives as much freedom as possible to players in choosing how they want to have fun. Forget levels, stages, and a linear growth path; instead, make everything flat and deservingly chaotic. It’s basically applying non-linear gameplay across narratives, level-designs/worlds, and even power-scaling.
Obviously, open-ended gameplay wasn’t new at the time of Breath of the Wild’s release in 2017. It’s widely accepted that the original 1986 The Legend of Zelda had already introduced the concept. Players can act as Link and save Hyrule in their own way and explore the map in a non-linear fashion.
Thus, my argument isn’t what was created. It’s how it was executed. Open-ended gameplay isn’t for everyone, and most studios don’t even apply this concept thanks to its fearful “hit or miss” nature. In truth, the details and execution have to be perfect to have open-ended gameplay make sense for any given project. BOTW took a big risk in applying open-ended gameplay, and it earned so much praise to the point where its dividends are still felt today. So how was it so good?
For starters, Nintendo made sure to integrate the “open-world exploration” idea together with the “open-endedness,” so that players still felt incentivized to make progress. They also kept players satisfied by introducing applicable rewards, such as upgrades on weapons which impact gameplay directly. Even side quests and shrine puzzles felt fulfilling to checkmark off the to-do list thanks to their influences on the main quest of the game. There’s a reason why so many play-testers were involved.
A massive open-world free for engagement
As mentioned above, BOTW pulled off their open-world in spectacular fashion, thanks to a never-ending array of activities, quests, seasons, nature, enemies, scenic views. Open worlds in RPGs have been around for decades, but creating such a massive one like Hyrule obviously requires time and dedication.
Not only was the world massive, but the game allowed players to engage with the world. They could chop trees, climb literally anything they wanted, set things on fire, swim, freeze water, bomb everything, and ride a horse anywhere. It couldn’t get more immersive than that — until Tears of the Kingdom dropped in 2023.
The importance of attention to detail
The Havok Physics Engine was used by Nintendo on a Zelda game for the first time with BOTW. This allowed the game to truly make sense of how objects influenced each other during contact and engagement. Additionally, a chemistry engine was also used to ensure elements and materials had rules and definitions on how they interacted.
For an open world RPG like BOTW, this was a necessity, but the execution of it is what mattered. In reality, a lot of physics and chemistry doesn’t exactly translate to the real world. Can you move in a raft with just a large leaf? Can you paraglide anywhere you want in the sky? Can you cook food by just throwing a few ingredients into a pot and letting the fire do the rest?
Of course not, but when you play the game, you forget about real-world transferability. It’s all about what you memorize within the game, and how that affects your gameplay. The details were spot on, and Zelda made a name for itself in the RPG space as a leader in getting everything on point.
What Tears of the Kingdom Introduced
1. Free style experimentation and crafting with game assets
As you saw from all the content spreading across the internet in the first week after launch, TOTK introduced a few new game mechanics — most notably Ultrahand and Fuse.
The former allows the player to pick up most game assets found in the open world and combine them in endless ways to create new devices or objects. Obviously it’s not endless, but it’s hardly a joke — people have built walking robots, flying saucers, gun-shaped sculptures, skateboards, planes, and flaming prisons to kill monsters in. Check this video out for more.
The latter generally allows players to “fuse” any in-game object/asset with their held weapon. Think: rocks or ice cubes on top of swords and ores on the tips of arrows. It expands the concept of combat in gaming, and really opens up for gamer creativity like no tomorrow.
This all falls under the “experimentation” umbrella that isn’t new to gaming, but hasn’t been exploited and integrated into the gameplay like it has in Zelda’s TOTK. Look out for future games and franchises to go down this “experimentation” path — especially in large open-worlds.
2. Vertical exploration at a massive open scale
BOTW already garnered universal acclaim to how amazing they depicted Hyrule in an open-world environment. Just how could it get better?
Vertical world-building isn’t new obviously and can take many forms; Nintendo opted for an “underground” and a series of “sky islands” to fill that idea for TOTK. Not to mention the numerous caves and wells that players can also explore to find items/rewards.
What’s funny is that expanding the world in TOTK isn’t even the most beloved new feature — I’d hand that title to Ultrahand or Fuse probably. But the expansion of this world by three times cannot be understated. I’m personally thrilled to explore to my hearts content even more-so, and each world (underground, land, sky) features environments that vary so much that I’ll never get bored.
3. How a sequel should be made
If you think the game developers copied a lot of their old code over from BOTW to make TOTK, well guess again. Sure, the game movement may be the same, as well as the physics and chemistry engines. But everything else pretty much changes. Sequels in games should always be looking to check off the following:
Address the weaknesses or complaints drawn from the previous game.
Keep beloved game-assets, unless they’re being replaced by better ones.
Take bold risks with new game mechanics.
I know there weren’t a lot of complaints regarding BOTW, but there were a few who stated you couldn’t customize the character enough, dress-up as a Yiga, or obtain enough item slots to hoard weapons. Not only did TOTK make sure to address all of that, but they kept many of the same staple game-assets that fans know the Zelda franchise well for having, and took new risks in experimentation and world-building.
TOTK kept things interesting, and the narrative/plot is spectacular. Well, I’m slightly sad they took unlimited bombs and Cryonis away. Maybe that’s just me. Happy gaming!
About Me
My name is Kasey, AKA J.X. Fu (pen name). I’m passionate about (you guessed it) writing, and thus I’ve found myself deep in the abyss on weeknights creating novels. I do this while working a full-time tech PM job during the day.
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