Nintendo has finally fully revealed its upcoming Zelda game! The full title is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild , and it is indeed set in a huge wilderness, which is being shown off on Nintendo’s E3 Treehouse stream as we speak. Link begins the game by being resurrected and sent out to “save the world,” by a mysterious female voice, but no specific instructions are given. There is no annoying sidekick character to hold your hand through the adventure. It’s just you, Link, and a world full of secrets to discover.
In fact, Breath of the Wild almost looks more like a wilderness survival game than a traditional Legend of Zelda title. Link has to scavenge armor, weapons, and health-restoring food as he goes. Weapons break as they’re used, and you’re meant to scavenge new ones from the foes you defeat as you go. He now eats food to restore health instead of mowing the grass down and breaking barrels to find hearts. The Kingdom of Hyrule is largely in ruins, and so far we’ve only seen one other single person during the adventure. It seems a little bit lonely, in fact.
Link has plenty of tools in his arsenal to explore this brave new world. He can now jump and climb freely (though he can only climb so far before running out of stamina), and the world is open for him to discover. He’s able to use items in the environment to fight battles and solve puzzles. For example, he can push a boulder onto his enemies or toss broken planks at their heads. He can even set up a death trap of explosive barrels and blow himself away with it, as Bill Trinen did during the stream. Link is also is able to find many of his traditional tools early on in the game. We’ve already seen a hang glider, bow and arrow, and bombs on the Treehouse stream.
Zelda theorists are postulating that this game take place in the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker timeline, years after the flood… and it looks like we’re meant to think so. Not only are the adorable leafy Koroks, a race previously only seen in the Wind Waker world, seen in this game, we’ve had a little hint from Nintendo’s Mr. Miyamoto himself. On Twitter , he compared an old man that we met in the game with the King of Hyrule from Wind Waker . Intriguing!