Nintendo

Nintendo The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Breath of the Wild is Nintendo's open-world action-adventure for Switch and Wii U, widely regarded as a landmark entry in the Zelda series.

### Overview

*Breath of the Wild* drops you into a world of discovery, exploration, and adventure, asking you to travel across fields, through forests, and to mountain peaks to uncover what has become of the ruined kingdom of Hyrule. It does away with the series' traditional linear gameplay for a much more open-ended experience — instead of tackling dungeons in a fixed order, you choose your own path, and no two players' journeys will look the same. Critics awarded it a Metacritic score of 97, and OpenCritic rates it "Mighty" with a top critic average of 96, recommended by 96% of reviewers.

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### Pros

- **Genuinely open world:** Unlike many games that promise a "truly open world" but funnel you toward objectives, *Breath of the Wild* is up there with *The Witcher 3* in offering a world full of things to do and emergent moments that will distract you for hours. This matters if you've felt railroaded by other open-world games. - **Sustained sense of discovery:** No matter how gorgeous the environments are or how tricky the puzzles get, the game continues to surprise you with newfound rules and possibilities after dozens of hours — a rare quality that keeps the experience fresh well past the 50-hour mark. - **Deep physics-driven interactivity:** The sheer amount of things you can interact with is remarkable — you can set fires, cook, craft, experiment with weapons, and watch the world react: rain puts out flames, wind spreads fire, metal conducts electricity. This systemic depth rewards curiosity over following instructions. - **Flexible difficulty and pacing:** The game gives you unprecedented freedom — after the initial hour or so, you can go anywhere and do anything, including taking on the final boss. Casual players can follow the story; completionists can sink 100+ hours into shrines, Korok seeds, and side quests.

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### Cons

- **Weapon durability system frustrates many players:** The weapon durability system is a common frustration — it can feel disheartening to have a hard-earned weapon shatter after a single encounter, and it can create a "hoarding" mentality that clashes with the game's otherwise freeing design. - **Occasional frame rate drops:** Performance issues do occur — at times you'll run into slowdown, especially in areas with a lot of foliage and wildlife. This is more noticeable in docked TV mode than in handheld. - **Traditional dungeon fans may feel shortchanged:** Some players feel the "proper" dungeon count is a little low and their size a little small compared to classic Zelda entries — the game leans heavily on shrines as its primary puzzle format instead. - **Narrative depth is limited:** While it's a completely new chapter for Zelda with open-world mechanics, the story is considered decent rather than deep — players who prioritize rich narrative over exploration may find it thin.

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### Who It's For

More than a typical Hyrule fantasy, *Breath of the Wild* is a daunting survival-adjacent game that forces you to think in entirely new ways — you have to be cautious, creative, and resourceful. It's an ideal fit for players who love organic exploration, emergent problem-solving, and the satisfaction of figuring things out without being hand-held. Estimates from HowLongToBeat suggest players will devote roughly 50 hours to the main experience, with significantly more available for completionists.

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### Not Right For

Players who prefer tightly structured, story-driven adventures with traditional Zelda-style dungeons and a stable weapon inventory — the open-ended design and weapon-breaking mechanics are core to the experience and cannot be toggled off.

Seen at 5 retailers from $39.99 to $69.99 as of 2026-07-18. Prices change — check the retailer for the current price.

A rare open-world game where exploration itself is the reward, not just a means to an end.