Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s open world cured my quest obsession

Tears of the Kingdom: The Legend of ZeldaLike its predecessor Breath of WildIt’s a huge game with a lot to do. It ought to be overwhelming — but in a twist, it’s actually helping me break one of my most compulsive habits.

I’m busy. Not abnormally so — not any more than you are, probably — but life just fills up, you know? I’ve got a to-do list for work and a to-do list for everything that’s not work. I’ve got precious little time for myself and a million things I want to do with it; I’ve got ballooning lists of things to watch and read and play that I’ll never keep up with. I’ve got apps for logging movies and TV and games and books. I’m compelled by the need to maximize. I’m min-maxing my free time.

Gamers are responsible for the development of some habits. Open-world games are a great example of this. They break down their massive maps, epic storylines, and other elements into a structure that is easy to digest, with checklists, collectibles, and objectives. (My friend calls them “UbiJobs,” after the framework of latter Assassin’s Creed games.) I love you, my beloved World of Warcraft This is a virtual to-do listing. It can feel like work, but it’s also satisfying, and it gives you a sense of achievement and mastery — so you try it in life. Designers of micromanagement apps, from managing pocket money to watching movies, have also learned from the design of this type of app.

Link climbs a sheer cliff in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. In the background, a shrine can be seen amid strange rock formations

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo

With me, the habit of turning everything into a checklist has started consuming games that don’t outwardly encourage it. Up until recently, my favorite game was Octopath Traveler 2, a classical RPG with eight parallel storylines that’s light on sub-objectives and tracking systems, and that leaves the player a lot of freedom in how to approach it, beyond the need to keep up with its leveling curve. But, I made lists of it on my phone: a list with the best order for completing quests and dungeons by suggested level. There were also items that needed to be hunted down.

This is not a good sign for me. Tears of the Kingdom: The Legend of Zelda. Just as I did six years ago, Breath of Wild, I’m amazed at the extent to which the game encourages freeform, organic play, real exploration, and real adventure.

In the evening, I fire it up with maybe two or three objectives in my head — mop up some shrines I spotted, head for the next temple, explore a new segment of the Depths. Three hours later, I’m only halfway toward my first objective, having had multiple surprising adventures and made multiple surprising discoveries on the way. I’ve done things I didn’t have on any list: take down a Battle Talus disguised as a Bokoblin post (and turn its heart into a hammer), enter a skydiving contest, chase fragments of falling stars, tidy up seal plushies. I’ve followed my nose, playing in a naturally inquisitive, experimental, freewheeling style, and I haven’t worried about making progress. I’ve allowed one sidetrack (like exploring a cave) to meander delightfully into another (like building a vehicle to propel a stranded Korok to its friend), taking me far off the route I had planned. I’ve just been present in the amazing world Nintendo has created. It’s as hectic and exciting as it sounds. Tears Of The Kingdom You could call it being mindful.

Link is a tiny figure soaring the the sky on a wing-shaped flying device. Below is a hazy landscape fading into a sunset

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo

What did Eiji Aonuma, Hidemaro Fubayashi and the Nintendo team do? I wish I knew — as do many game designers, I’m sure. Breath of Wild is often called influential, but over the last six years there’s been a notable lack of games that have been able to imitate it, especially in this respect. There are few AAA open-world games which can hide the spreadsheets on which they’re built. If it were easy, we’d have more games that could make us feel like this. There are some clues.

Tears Of The Kingdom’s world map feels effortlessly natural, but it’s designed with an unwavering focus on sightlines: There’s always a view, and within that view, there’s always something to look at. The visual design emphasizes the readability of distances, using clear silhouettes with colorful highlights. With all its clever physics systems, it feels like a teeming, living world, but it’s just as important that it should look like one, too, and that’s where the painstaking craft of Nintendo’s artists comes in. The same was true for Breath of WildIt is all heightened by the verticality that has been achieved. Tears Of The Kingdom’s three-tiered world of surface, sky, and cavernous depths.

Then there’s the variety of that world, and the level of craftsmanship in its construction. Unlike so many open-world games, this doesn’t feel like a landscape that’s been populated from a box of cookie-cutter content types. The enemy camps, cave systems, and minigames are all unique. They seem to emerge organically out of the terrain. I wonder what they’re carrying? Why does that sky island have a shape like a huge spiral? You’re drawn to these points of interest, not by a map marker, but because they look interesting; you’ve never seen one like The following are some examples of how to use before. This context includes even Tears Of The Kingdom’s grindiest collectathons, like the Korok seeds, don’t present themselves as a to-do list, because they have (in their hundreds!) The Korok seeds, for example, are not listed on a to-do list because they have been (in their hundreds!)

Link rides a horse across an open green plain toward mountains in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo

New cave systems provide a great example of what can be done. Tears Of The KingdomYou are constantly led astray. Their inviting entryways aren’t portals to mini dungeons that will dump you back at the start upon completion. The paths lead to underground tunnels, which are usually in the opposite direction of where you wanted to go. You will eventually ascend to the top of the hill with new views and new discoveries.

Then you can immerse yourself further in Tears Of The KingdomIn its default form, the interface is stripped of most HUD features. In its default form,Tears provides a lot of information — but save for one pulsing quest marker on the minimap, none of it is about what to do next. There are map pins you’ve placed yourself (perhaps using your telescope to scan the landscape), there’s the time, the weather, the temperature, your health, your abilities, and your geopositional coordinates. Quest tracker is a bit rudimentary and can only be viewed in the main menu.

What you need to know Tears Of The Kingdom’s developers think is important: where you are, what the conditions are, and what tools you have at your disposal. It is not a good idea to use You should know what to do. This, like so many other things in this beautiful, unpredictable engine for discovery, are up to you. By their playfulness and artistry, the developers gave me the permission to just enjoy and experience this game.

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