ZD Top 5 – New Elements of Breath of the Wild
Posted on June 24 2016 by Jon Lett
E3 has come to a close, and we are pretty much overflowing with information on Breath of the Wild. There is a lot to go through, and a lot of streams and player demos have revealed sweet new details about the game to get excited for. But with so much to think about, what are you most hyped for? This week, the ZD team has taken a look at their favorite parts of this epic upcoming game, at least that we know about so far. Make sure to drop your own lists in the comments, so we can see what all of you are excited to see in the newest Zelda adventure!
Jon Lett – View Profile
5. Non-Linear, Open World to Explore (Made with help from the Xenoblade developers!)
4. Some Voice Acting That DOESN’T Suck
3. A Totally New Side of Hyrule, Ancient and Broken
2. The New Amiibo
1. Open-Environment Battles
The moment Eiji Aonuma showed everyone footage of the horseback battle against a Guardian during the Treehouse stream, I was mad hyped. For a very long time – Since way back when the Z-Talk Podcast was still going strong – I have pointed out that I wanted battles with enemies out in the open, with the environment affecting your fight, and not being confined to some dungeon room. In a recent editorial, I pointed out that Twilight Princess’ horseback battles were a good start, and Hyrule Warriors finally brought it home with its bosses, and especially the final Ganon fight. It was awesome to finally fight those huge creatures out in the open, even if the environment did not really affect anything. Now, though, the dream has come true. Breath of the Wild is breaking conventions, and this convention of only fighting the bosses in dank dungeons is finally shifting. I can’t wait for this, and all other aspects of the game I have listed.
Kira Koneko – View Profile
5. Open air environment
4. New amiibo
3. Hunting, gathering, cooking
2. New areas to explore
1. New characters, story, and lore
Now that we not only have a proper title for the new Zelda game, we also have a slew of new skills, adventures and possibilities! Aside from being super excited about having a new addition to the franchise all of the new things announced at E3 have made me much less apprehensive about what the possibilities might be. So far I feel that all of the things announced will only add more depth and longevity to an already amazing series of games. Is it stupid that aside from the new characters, lore, and areas to explore that I am most excited about the hunting, gathering, and cooking? Especially now that it has been confirmed that Monolith Soft is working on the game I simply can’t wait to know more!
Thomas Jacobs – View Profile
5. Cooking
4. Pretty graphics and art design
3. The various environments we’ve seen so far
2. Climbing everything
1. All the little things
Cooking looks like it can be quite fun. From what I’ve seen from the item descriptions you can at least somewhat discern what their effects are to make useful food, but I reckon that there will still be elements of surprise in there. The game looks great: both the quality of the graphics and the art design. The hills, the frozen plateau, the desert, the cliffs and the Sheikah trials as well: it looks beautiful. An interesting turn on things is that in previous Zelda games the developers could just plonk down a mountain range and the player could not pass. But in Breath of the Wild the player can climb pretty much anything, including enemies. It’s like what Todd Howard said five years ago about Skyrim. See that mountain? You can climb it. Except hopefully without the glitches. But the best thing so far seems to be the little things. Enemies setting their own weapons on fire with the burning thing you threw at one of their buddies. When you kick open a chest without wearing boots Link hurts his foot. The shivering when he’s getting cold. It’s beautiful, all of it.
