I like “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.” I don’t love it, but I like it. Its hardware-defying physics engine and uncommonly large open world are cool. Scaling every single wall in the game admittedly feels like a bit of a magic trick of mechanical engineering. But, all of that seems as though it surrounds a game that just… doesn’t do very much. For a long time, I figured that was an inherent symptom of the open world formula– once a game reaches a certain level of “openness,” I reasoned, it’s impossible to get all that much out of it.
The entire map can’t be full of meticulously designed points of interaction that communicate things about the world and its characters, most of it is going to be empty. That’s the compromise we’ve all agreed to in open-world games. The games that try to defy this wrinkle in the formula, like “Death Stranding” and “Red Dead Redemption 2,” often do so by closing the world– each of these games is ultimately about completing specific, prescribed tasks. A game that is as devoted to letting the player do whatever they want as “Breath of the Wild” is definitionally incapable of remaining as engaging as the more tightly focused “Zelda” games like the excellent “Link’s Awakening.”
That’s what I thought before “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” came out.
Initially, I wasn’t going to play “Tears of the Kingdom.” All the marketing for the game made it appear very similar to “Breath of the Wild” - it has a very similar map and a very similar mission structure, and it’s one of the few direct sequels in the “Legend of Zelda” superseries. But a handful of games that I had set aside to sell wound up on a trade-in promotion at GameStop. One thing led to another and I ended up giving open-world “Zelda” one more chance, and I was stunned.
“Tears of the Kingdom” almost single-handedly justifies the idea of an open-world “Zelda” game for me. Pretty quickly the game introduces you to the “Ultrahand,” an ability that allows you to pick up nearly any item in your environment and attach it to any other item. This is already a neat mechanical trick, but “Tears of the Kingdom” lets you do more than build bridges with it (but make no mistake, I’ve built a lot of bridges). There are also “Zonai devices,” machines that can be fused together using the Ultrahand to create ridiculous vehicles.
Ultrahand isn’t the only handy tool you get in “Tears of the Kingdom.” There’s also “Recall,” another marvel of design and implementation that makes any item travel backwards through time, and “Ascend,” which allows the player to literally swim through ceilings. Combining these abilities leads to a ton of “wow” moments that I won’t spoil here.
“Tears of the Kingdom” is also slightly less hazy than “Breath of the Wild” when it comes to focus. While it has a nearly identical map, it also introduces Sky Islands, small hyper-designed locations in the clouds that are entirely built around those abilities (Ultrahand tends to take precedence over the other two just for its ridiculous versatility). Even on the ground, the player’s new toolkit is so simultaneously adaptable and specific that empty expanses are almost automatically transformed into goofy sandboxes.
I’m not sure if “Tears of the Kingdom” is what I want out of the future of “Zelda.” I think I would ultimately still prefer another game in the vein of “Link’s Awakening.” However, a few weeks ago, I didn’t think a truly great open-world “Zelda” was even possible. Now I’m a convert.
Sorrel Kerr-Jung is a junior studying virtual reality game development at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnist do not reflect those of The Post. Do you agree? Tell Sorrel by tweeting her at @sorrelquest.
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