How "Breath of the Wild" Redefined the Open World Genre
Link staring off into Hyrule (Nintendo) There’s a certain game within the Legend of Zelda franchise that stands out, even among countless classics, that have redefined the way we think of open-world games . The year was 2017 and unless you lived under a rock there was only one game that redefined this medium, “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” . It was perhaps the most ambitious game ever released in the series and surpassed the expectations of many people including myself. Making roughly a third of sales from every Zelda game combined , people who have never played a Zelda game before most likely played “Breath of the Wild”. It goes to show how a beloved classic of gaming history is able to keep up and even innovate to inspire many other similar games in the future. In order to explain what exactly made “Breath of the Wild” such a popular phenomenon we must explore the innovations that came with breaking the linear storyline that redefined how the game was played. In terms o