#breatheofthewild

[nandemonoa]

My only casualty when moving data to my new switch was my #botw save file. I god most of my progress back but have yet to redo to DLC so let’s get link a motorcycle tonight! twitch.tv/nandemoNOA #kawaii, #kawaiistreamer #smallstreamer #gamergirl #breatheofthewild #botwstream https://www.instagram.com/p/CqBhlmwvumO/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[lapencse]

Finally finished all 3 dragons

[stardustgremlin]

Yahaha! You found me! ~ 🌱✨

My fandom keychain collection is live! You can find this keychain and more in my shop now.

I'm really happy to finally release these. Making keychains has been so much fun, and I'm excited to continue to make even more. ♥️

[bluesdraws]

Link. Zelda vibes #anime #art #sketch #draw #drawing #game #thelegendofzelda #breatheofthewild #link #zelda https://www.instagram.com/p/By2AMiqJZAF/?igshid=e3u4aouurt4q

[aimeekitty]

Finished Zelda! Prints available at my #wondercon aa table f-28! #wca2018 #zelda #breatheofthewild #art

[bearlycoherent-blog]

Little guy loves his little guy! Should we do an episode on the #zelda series? Comment below!👇👇👇✌️✌️ #link #windwaker #littleguy #spiderman #alinktothepast #ocorinaoftime #breatheofthewild #nintendo #nintendoswitch

[dancingyogini777]

This is a time to take a step back and breathe out. Exhale. All this tiredness, and everything else you are feeling - RELEASE. ~ Take a few minutes away from work, breathe, relax, and slowly get back to whatever it is you need to. ~ Lots of Love and Light ✨🌷 Namaste 🙏🏼 Ruchitta ~ merakihealers.com ~ • • • • • • • • • #indianyogini #igyogacommunity #igyogachallenge #igyogachallenge #internationalyogaday #viparite #yogadayiscoming #igyogachallenge #yogachallenge #wristwarmup #elbowwarmup #yogaforeverybody #simpleyoga #breathein #indianyogi #intuitiveyoga #warmingupforyoga #breatheadventure #breatheofthewild #marajiasana #catcowyoga #catcamelyoga #yogaforeveryone #paschimottanasana #backbends #openheart #heartchakra https://www.instagram.com/p/CDWPzBKjVL2/?igshid=11yhn1pqcszg1

[jirafasycachalotes]

Replica de.Fierce Deity de la Leyenda de Zelda. ☆ ☆ ☆ #fiercedeity #tloz #thelegendofzelda #laleyendadezelda #zeldafans #link #majorasmask #breatheofthewild #mascaras #tiendademascaras #shopmask #cartapesta #hechoenmexico #monterrey #cosplay #fieradeidad (en Monterrey, Mexico) https://www.instagram.com/p/CCmtACZBqbj/?igshid=1to3ubjg0pgn3

[backtothemedia-blog]

*Time to SWITCH it up 💥🕹 Newest revision Seitch console. Gently used. Just in! Priced less than the big box stores like always! 👌✌👊 #nintendoswitch #nintendo #worldofnintendo #amiibo #switch #zelda #breatheofthewild #thelegendofzelda #gamestore #oldtownwinchester #winchesterva (at Old Town Winchester, VA) https://www.instagram.com/p/B658XC-n1VA/?igshid=4k4lbytqdqmm

[lapencse]

[starshineplush]

#koroks #legendofzelda #plush #breatheofthewild

[stardustgremlin]

Yahaha! You can find me at @northern_game_expo ! ~🌱🌰 . We're at Cambrian College from 10am to 6pm today! Come on down to find a soft cutie to call your own! . . . #korok #legendofzelda #breatheofthewild #northerngameexpo2019 #northerngameexpo #korokplush https://www.instagram.com/p/Bww5nDBJx4Z/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=163da9571ccmc

[triforcedelgeezy]

I can't believe Smash Bros Ultimate came out one year ago. I main Link as my ace character for it's new moves sets in the game. Back I started cosplaying Link feel likes been decades cosplaying Link and many other Link outfits to try on. I feel proud that Link is my cosplay ace. Cosplay: Link Breath of the Wild Photographer: @beyondinfinitemedia #herooftime, #legendofzelda, #breatheofthewild, #njcosplayer, #heroofthewild, #mastersword, #smashultimate, #nintendo, #cosplayersoninstagram (at Super Smash Bros) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5yvPENjQId/?igshid=1fyzvukzfh49a

[coolhootowlquack-blog]

Alright people this has been harder for me ask for lately but, rip this painting to shreds if you would be so kind. I’d really like critique on what is wrong in this picture and what I can fix and try to do better on; color, lighting, structure, perspective...basically all of it. Please and thank you 🤗🙏 #legendofzelda #link #digitalart #digitalpainting #painting #distractions #practice #study #paintingstudies #breatheofthewild #ripittoshreds #critiques #porfavor https://www.instagram.com/p/B1h6HEnDu9Q/?igshid=12e7zd3p5cjxp

[susanyung]

Sharing some Breathe of the Wild love! @ECCC

[leftwriteb]

Industry Trend: Open Worlds & Empty Spaces

With the recent release of both Horizon: Zero Dawn and the impending UK launch of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the WiiU/Switch in the next few minutes, the gaming community is going to be treated to two incredible sprawling universes with little but a handful of days between them. Even if that wasn't enough, a new endeavour into the galactic expanses of Mass Effect: Andromeda could easily be another title to add to the growing list of open world games that have reigned supreme on the "next gen" (or now much rather current) console generation. As someone who plans to get all three of these games, as well as the disc copy of Telltales TWD Season 3, March is going to be an expensive and time consuming month for many.

With the latest generation of consoles having been around for a few years now, we are starting so see games and developers use the tools at their disposal in new and exciting ways. Uncharted 4 showed us that games are prettier than ever. Forza Horizon 3 showed us games are smoother than ever. Games like Limbo and The Witness showed us that older concepts and genres could be reborn and reimagined. Games like Star Wars: Battlefront showed us that you can make stupid amounts of money selling half a game... again.. Oh, and let's not forget that The Witcher 3 showed us games were bigger than ever. That too.

But, that being said, I can’t say I ever completed the Witcher 3. Not even close. And a large part of that was because the game gave me something I had never experienced before: a world that was just too big. That’s not to say the game was bad of course, but I found myself less and less interested in the map and what was held within it because there was no real drive for me to explore and investigate every corner as I often do when playing games. While I absolutely adored the time I spent with the game, in a landmass as vast as it was, much of that space was empty and void of the kind of mystery or intrigue that would usually have its hooks in me. 

In all honesty, this is something far too common in this generations lifespan. When I look at the the games I’ve spent the most time with over the past few years, it’s sadly all too clear that they are also the games that haven’t stuck with me. Unlike games before them, they don’t have locations I vividly remember, or locales I could map out from memory. To this day, I could still build a shockingly acccurate model of Outset Island from Wind Waker if asked to. I can still tell you how where the best vantage point is in Armadillo, the first town you come across in Red Dead Redemption, and describe in detail the layout around it. I could even take you on a worryingly precise tour of most of Pandora given the time spent in the Borderlands games.

But when I look at more recent games, feats like that are far more difficult. I couldn’t tell you the name of one location from Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, despite the game being my first Platinum Trophy and one of my favourite titles on the Playstation 4 so far. I can’t recall anywhere particularly memorable from the many hours I spent within Far Cry 4. Even having spent hundreds of hours (and £) on Fallout 4, I remember far less of the map than that of it’s predecessor. It’s a problem sometimes referred to as “open world fatigue”. Far too often we see games having open worlds for open world sake, and in an attempt to create more for the player to do, the surroundings these tasks are situated in are dull, repetitive or both.

Having played a good number of hours of Horizon, and around 30 minutes of Breath of the Wild at the Switch event in London a few weeks ago, it does thankfully look like this trend in the industry is about to get a big fat slap in the face.

Let’s start with Zelda, given this is the game that releases around now in the UK (at the time of posting) and is the game I’ve spent less time with of the two. In just the short time I had with the game, it can’t be stated enough how refreshing the game felt, not just as a Zelda title, but within our beloved medium as a whole. Every corner I chose to explore had something waiting for me. While there were plenty of open grassland areas, looming forests and aged rock formations to create the vast stretches of this reimagined Hyrule, they were generously peppered with things of interest too.

The buried remains of an ancient Guardian sat in a cluster of moss and dirt, frozen in mid-animation. Lakes and rivers would cut through the terrain to add some visual variety and to add some complexity to navigating. Goblin camps would often be positioned along commonly used pathways and would be home to a whole host of enemies and loot, should you defeat them.

What’s more, these details within the greenery provided new ways to interact with the world around you. At one camp, I found some large boulders on a hilltop to the west. Pushing these boulders down the slopes meant I squashed two of the three enemies waiting for me, allowing for an easier victory and an even easier path to the wooden chest the blighters had been guarding. The world felt more alive than any iteration I had played before it, and this wasn’t just limited to the environment; characters and enemies feel more alive than ever too! While traversing a canyon during exploration, I found myself within a narrow bottleneck. Atop of solitary rock stood a goblin wielding a wooden torch. After knocking him to the ground with an arrow or two, his lit torch set the grass around us alight and we both scurried backwards away from the flames, waiting for them to die out, before we charged at each other once more ready to settle our little ember-filled spat. What made me fall in love with the game was how this clearly huge space before me felt like it had purpose. It felt lived in. It felt like it had a history. The things I saw felt like they were there for a reason, instead of just to fill a void.

It’s been a long time coming but I can tell you that I am incredibly excited to play what Zelda has waiting for me, and I honestly think you should be too.

On a more Sony oriented note, Horizon: Zero Dawn is also proving to be another highlight in the catalogue for Playstation 4. While the comparisons between Horizon and Zelda will undoubtedly surface, it’s important to keep in mind that while they do a few things similarly, they are two very different behemoths. While Breath of the Wild brings a much-needed freshness to an established series, Horizon aims to build a solid base for a completely new IP and, make no mistake, it succeeds.

Horizon is a game of two tales and it’s one that manages to provide a playground filled with things you’re already familiar with. Scaling a Tallneck reveals the expanse on your map as you’ve seen in many Ubisoft titles. You can traverse the map via your mount which you can summon to you, akin to the Witcher 3′s Roach, though perhaps not as comical as Geralt’s almighty steed. You’ve got heavy attacks, light attacks, special tools and a weapon wheel just as you’d expect. What the game does, it does incredibly well and with a great deal of polish. But on top of this all is a new universe to become complete infatuated with too.

The strange mashup of sci-fi robotics and engineering with more traditional tribal influences creates a kind of harmony in artistic direction you wouldn't expect to see with such juxtaposition. Locales are a cocktail of twisted metal and blossoming vegetation and everywhere you go has a reason to exist and a visual storytelling that ignites your imagination as you try to piece together your own logic for how or why this ruin is where it is.

While there is plenty of familiarity to keep you grounded in the world Horizon offers, there’s so much more depth in what it brings newly to the table. The open spaces are ones you’ll want to envelope yourself in and already, in the limited hours I have spent with the game so far, I have discovered locations and beauty in the environments that will stick with me forever in my gaming endeavours. This world isn’t just beautiful; it’s actually interesting and exciting too.

While there have been plenty of open worlds and empty spaces in videogames in recent memory, we are at a point in time where things are really changing and open worlds are coming into their own. They feel, as they should, more like established worlds than just open ones. With Horizon and Zelda, we are treated to some of the most brilliantly realised worlds we have ever seen in this medium and I think we can all agree that that’s a trend we hope continues.