TheLegend of Zeldafranchise has done a lot for the open-world genre. Though it took quite some time before the franchise fully embraced a truly open-world design, much of open-world adventure genre can trace its origins back toThe Legend of Zelda, whether it’sOcarina of Time’s varied environments and lively NPCsor the series' phenomenal dungeons. But withZelda: Breath of the WildandThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, it’s time for the franchise to more directly impact the open-world genre.
Boasting one of the most freeing sandboxes in all of gaming, with a handful of abilities that have never really been seen before,The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomtakes the great groundwork laid by its predecessor and continues to build on it, producing yet another excellent open-world adventure game. But that doesn’t meanZelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s open-worldis perfect, however, and there’s one sizable issue that it shares with FromSoftware’sElden Ring.
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Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Open-World Design Shares an Issue With Elden Ring
A game that wears itsZelda: Breath of the Wildinfluenceson its sleeve,Elden Ringtook the challenging yet satisfying gameplay FromSoftware titles are known for and built a gigantic open-world around it. In a similar vein toBreath of the Wild,Elden Ringgave players one simple objective and let them find their own way there, giving them free rein over the map from the get-go. While this approach helps to make players feel like they’re setting off on their own adventure with each discovery being their own, it also leads to one of the game’s biggest issues.
Elden Ringhad a bit of a pacing issue. With almost the entire map being open from the start, players were encouraged to explore as much ofthe Lands Betweenas they wanted. For many players, this meant scouring every inch of the map to make sure that they completed every dungeon and defeated every boss in that area before moving on to the next, but for some, this meant riding straight past most of the game’s optional content. This lead to a pretty significant issue whereby players would return to an area after 40+ hours of gameplay, only to realize that they’d left a dungeon unexplored. Upon entering the dungeon, the player would realize that the enemies inside were intended for a player who had just started the game, and as such, they’d now be able to breeze through the area with no challenge at all.
Unfortunately,The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomhas a similar issue. After completingTears of the Kingdom’s tutorial level, players are given free rein over Hyrule once again, only being pointed in the direction of four different objectives. If players decide to immediately head off in search of one of these objectives, they’re very likely to miss the Shrines surrounding the starting area around Hyrule Castle. InBreath of the Wild, Shrines could mostly be discovered at any point in the game, with the level of difficulty being fairly consistent throughout them. However,Tears of the Kingdomhas a selection of tutorial Shrines, mostly located around the starting area. These tutorial Shrines teach the player combat basics like parrying and weapon throwing, along with some barebones mechanics they’ll need to understand to be able to solve puzzles.
Returning to these Shrines after tens of hours of gameplay can be pretty jarring, and a little tedious. The last thing a veteranTears of the Kingdomplayer wants to do in a Shrine is to slowly follow basic instructions that they should have learned hours ago. Rather than reward the player for venturing out of the starting area early, these tutorial Shrines often only make the player feel as though they missed something and are now being punished for leaving Hyrule Castle so early, which is the opposite messageTheLegend of Zelda:Tears of the Kingdomshould be giving.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomis available now on Switch.
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