The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - How to Improve Upon a Masterpiece
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece in my opinion.
It is still my favorite gaming experience on the Switch and still my favorite game this gen. Since playing through the game back in 2017 at launch, I’ve since played through it again a second time on Master Mode during summer 2021. I spent more time with the game on my second playthrough (190 hours) than my first one (155 hours). Both counts include the DLC.
While enjoying my second playthrough, I thought a lot about what design choices I would’ve made to the game myself and would certainly like to see implemented in the sequel. The game borrows a great deal from earlier open-world games and I think the game should lean into these a lot more in the sequel.
If the dev team were to ever invite little ol’ me to Kyoto one day to just pick my brain on what I’d retrospectively add to BoTW to make it a more enjoyable experience for me, the following list is what I’d discuss with them. This retrofitted build of Breath of the Wild (or added feature set for sequel tentatively known as Breath of the Wild 2).
Skyrim’s Influence
The Breath of the Wild development team took a close look at Skyrim for open-world game design source material. In this Gamespot interview, both Hidemaro Fujibayashi and Eiji Aonuma, Breath of the Wild’s director and producer respectively, spoke about taking a look at Skyrim to “see what worked, what didn’t.”
Taking this into consideration, we can see how Link is similar to the Dragonborn in a terms of his stats. In Skyrim, your character has HP, MP, and Stamina base stats. In BoTW, Link has Hearts (HP) and Stamina as base stats. There are no strength and defense character stats in either game. Instead, for the first time in the Zelda series, we have weapons and armor with stats and bonus properties; like the Dragonborn, Link’s defense is represented by his armor rating. His attack power is represented by a given weapon’s attack power.
The Dragonborn levels up via experience points. Link “levels up” via experience points dubbed spirit orbs.
Once you’ve been notified that you’ve increased a level in Skyrim and visit the ‘Level up’ menu screen, you are required to choose which base stat – Magicka, Health, or Stamina - to increase +10 points. In BoTW, you choose to cash in your spirit orbs whenever you want. Each time you visit a goddess statue, you can increase Link’s base stats – Hearts and Stamina – via exchanging four spirit orbs for either one Heart Container or one Stamina Vassal. One Heart container increases Link’s health by one heart (+4 HP) and one Stamina Vassal increases Link’s stamina wheel by one-fifth of a full wheel.
There are some interesting similarities here. Including both games being pretty terrible with numbers.
Yes, not very good with numbers at all. Skyrim technically isn’t as bad but it has its own issues. However, BoTW is so allergic to numerals that it is overly cryptic for no good reason at all. I mean, there’s no reason to lack this much transparency.
But before I elaborate on that, I’ll say a quick word about Skyrim. I’m playing the game on Switch right now (about 25 hours in). I would love an option to have my Magicka, Health, and Stamina displayed numerically OUTSIDE of the game’s menu. Yes, I mean, the bars are cool and all, no shade to them, they’re very useful. But those bars WITH numbers would’ve been much better. Hit points or percentages – either would’ve sufficed.
Oddly enough, this is not a criticism I levy at BoTW at all. Hearts are just traditional (excluding Zelda II – in fact, omit that game from this entire conversation – it is an exception) and I would not want to see the hearts go away. I love the stamina wheel as it is.
However, as mentioned earlier, BoTW has some major issues with transparency.
1). Stop Hiding the Numbers!
First, the game does not even explain what the numbers it does show even mean. Each piece of equipment Link can equip displays a number in the bottom right-hand corner. These stats represent:
· armor rating (armor)
· attack power (melee weapons & bows)
· shield guard (shields)
Nowhere are these things explained in the game.
Thankfully, each enemy has a visible life bar. I loved this feature in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker; once you’ve obtained the Hero’s Charm, it let you see enemy health bars. And enemy health bars were an absolute must given BoTW’s design.
And even better, the Champion’s Tunic lets you see enemy health bar numerically – in Current HP/Total HP format. I like this as and really makes the Champion’s Tunic feel special despite having the highest armor rating in the game when fully leveled.
However, the Champion’s Tunic has two other secret super powers:
1) it reveals camouflaged/hidden enemies who may otherwise be hard to see/out of site, and…
2). It allows us to quantify how Link deals damage in the game. It allows you to numerically calculate how much damage you’ve done and how buffs and weapon modifiers affect your overall damage output.
Seriously, both BoTW and Skyrim could stand to allow players the option for damage numbers (this was a change I was very happy to see added to Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Rise).
It is simple enough to realize that a weapon Link wields will subtract that weapons’ attack power from the enemy’s HP, but what if Link guzzles a potion enabling a low level attack power buff? That simple math behind the scenes now has to calculate the value of that hidden buff. And this is the problem! The game does not quantify how much “low level”, “mid level”, or “high level” attack buffs will increase your attack power – this is true for most buff for that matter.
At this point, I’d like to give a huge shout out to Croton. He did the amazing work of experimenting and figuring out the hidden stats in the game. Please check out his work on the Stats of the Wild series.
We now know that a low-level, mid-level, and high-level buffs correspond to. Here are the maths:
The Maths
Why are these values even hidden? Shouldn’t the player be shown these figures?
In addition to this, various other values are completely hidden. Weapon and shield durability is hidden. Elemental damage, particularly how you deal and receive elemental damage, is completely hidden. How the shield guard stat even functions is completely hidden (and the official guidebook is completely erroneous on how it describes that stat as Croton pointed).
I have no idea why Nintendo goes out of its way to hide these numbers and be so non-transparent. Even the horse stats and armor levels are represented by stars as opposed to numbers! I have no idea what that’s all about. In a Link to the Past, levels were represented by numbers for Link’s current equipped sword. Same with Link’s Awakening with any item that could be upgraded within the game (such as the “L-1 Sword”). No idea why they would go with stars here. Your buff levels are also represented by an icon with one to three small, blue horizontal lines lit up.
This buff icon means your attack power is increased by 50%. The game doesn’t ever tell you that though. So you have to do some sleuthing figure this out.
Just adding a number to the right that reads the percentage increase would work fine, but why not just add the buff value/percentage increase to the right of the icon on the menu screen?
For the sequel, hopefully Nintendo will be transparent with all of this information and not go out of its way to omit numbers when they should be leaning into it. Give the player more information to make calculations. I think this would certainly improve the experience.
2). Skill Trees
This is one area that would add so much customization to the player and really give the feeling of building your character beyond just progressively increasing both Link’s health and stamina. The game does tell you during the loading screen that if you’re having trouble surviving enemies, then you need to train Link up by grinding shrines to get spirit orbs to increase health and stamina.
The game essentially tells you to “level up” if you’re too weak/taking a beating vs higher-level enemies
I think the incremental training hamster wheel would be even more engaging if you had character attributes to customize according to your particular personal play style.
For example, let’s take the Shiekah Slate. Out of your six total runes, three can be upgraded beyond their base level – Remote Bombs, Stasis, and Cryonis. Let’s focus on remote bombs in this instance. The Remote Bombs do a flat 12 HP of damage to enemies and have a six-second cooldown. The upgraded to Remote Bombs + does a flat 24 HP of damage to enemies and have a three-second cooldown.
Instead of just one upgrade for remote bombs, why not allow the player to incrementally increase the power of the bombs along an upgrade path? Instead of doubling the effectiveness of the bombs right away, the skill tree would allow the player to upgrade bombs incrementally along the branch. Maybe that could look something like this:
Remote Bombs (base level): 12 damage/6 sec. cooldown
Remote Bombs (level 2): 15 damage/5 sec. cooldown
Remote Bombs (level 3): 18 damage/4 sec. cooldown
Remote Bombs (level 4): 21 damage/3.5 sec. cooldown
Remote Bombs (level 5): 24 damage/3 sec. cooldown
There could be skill trees around Link’s abilities too. Think about stamina for example. Perhaps a skill tree could look like:
1 skill point = 1% faster stamina regen
3 skill points = 2% faster stamina regen
5 skill points = 3% faster stamina regen, etc…
Or there could be a branch where stamina drains slower during specific actions by a set percentage. This could apply to stamina usage while gliding, fighting (charge attacks), running, etc.
Here’s how a skill tree branch could go for everyone’s favorite – climbing during the rain:
1 skill point = 5% less slippage when climbing during rain
2 skill points = 10% less slippage when climbing during rain
3 skill points = 15% less slippage when climbing during rain
4 skill points = 20% less slippage when climbing during rain
5 skill points = 25% less slippage when climbing during rain
(Granted, these skill point allocations would need to be balanced but I’m just making up examples here!)
The Champion’s abilities too would be much better upgraded through a skill tree system than just upgrading one time in the Champion’s Requiem DLC where the Champion’s abilities go from OP to God-Tier with their brand new, fancy, upgraded cooldowns.
I think the Champion abilities skill tree could look something like this:
Urbosa’s Fury (base level) = 50 damage
Urbosa’s Fury (level 2) = 75 damage
Urbosa’s Fury (level 3) = 100 damage
Urbosa’s Fury (level 3) = 125 damage
Urbosa’s Fury (level 4) = 150 damage
Coming out of the gate doing 150 damage is nice in the game as it is but we should be working our way up there.
For Mipha’s Grace, the skill tree branch could look like this:
Mipha’s Grace (base level) = resurrection w/ 5 hearts (like a fairy)
Mipha’s Grace (level 2) = resurrection w/ 8 hearts
Mipha’s Grace (level 3) = resurrection w/ full hearts
Mipha’s Grace (level 4) = resurrection w/ full hearts +2 temporary hearts
Mipha’s Grace (level 5) = resurrection w/ full hearts +5 temporary hearts
Perhaps Revali’s Gale could be upgraded to incrementally increase the wind gust vertical height. And Daruk’s Protection could be upgraded to incrementally give more defensive protection and learn the ability to parry Guardian lasers automatically eventually at one of the higher levels of the skill tree.
There could also be skills on the skill tree that affect certain weapon sets (ex: Zora, Sheikah, or ancient weapons) uniquely. You could have skills that affect pricing and items in stores. Combat skills around perfect dodges and parrying. Skills that increase drop rates of materials from enemies. Skills that affect horseback riding. Skills that affect certain weapon types (one-handed, two-handed, long-range, bows, etc).
The possibilities are endless!
My style of playing BoTW involves no horses and TONS of climbing. I explore Hyrule on foot and spend a lot of time atop Hyrule’s canopy - so I also use my glider a ton. For my preferred play style, it would be fantastic to have a skill tree where I could dump a ton of skill points into incrementally enhancing stamina, climbing, and Revali’s Gale.
Another level of customization would be added with this and not everyone’s Link would be the same, especially if there aren’t enough skill points to go around and people have to customize according to their individual play style.
Skill points could be awarded for every four spirit orbs you collect. Or you could be granted a skill point (or whatever item they want to call it – a ‘skill orb’ maybe) each time you visit a Goddess statue to receive a Heart Container or a Stamina Vassal.
I don’t know if Nintendo EPD will decide to go with a skill tree in the sequel. I sincerely hope they take a look a Skyrim and other games like The Witcher 3 (and even Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle!) to look for examples of how skill trees could be implemented in the sequel. At the very least, I would be happy if they bring back the ring system of the Oracle games (which was very similar to the badge system in Paper Mario).
At least some kind of character customization for players to sink their teeth into would be ideal for the game in my opinion.
3). Armor Set Loadouts
The ability to customize quick armor set loadouts would be awesome. There are so many pieces of armor that have situational uses – such as the Climbing set or Rubber set, both of which I equip only while climbing and during thunderstorms respectively.
In the menus, you have two customization options for your armor sets – sort them by type (i.e. head gear, body armor, and leggings) or sort them by armor set. No matter how you sort them, you must equip each piece individually.
I think it would be great if EPD took a page from Monster Hunter and let you customize a ton of loadouts in the menu. It would be a subtle and yet greatly effective quality of life improvement.
4). Deeper Crafting
The only real crafting in the game happens at the Ancient Tech Lab in Akkala for ancient weapons. Well that, and the Champion’s weapons, which I never felt compelled to craft at all in the game. But what if the materials list was expanded and we could craft EVERY piece of weaponry in the game?
I enjoy this feature and the Zelda team really began going all in on it ‘for real’ in Skyward Sword. Breath of the Wild has not evolved much past that and I see a great opportunity for this feature in the sequel.
Again, The Witcher 3 and Skyrim are great examples of how this could and even should be implemented.
Granted, it was a lot of fun in BoTW to discovering new armor sets – especially the well-hidden ones that the devs made sure to put out of the way (like the Climbing Gear). But I think there could be a happy medium where we get to discover cool armor sets AND craft cool armor sets as well.
5). Raise level caps
Breath of the Wild has the scope to be able to raise level caps for armor sets. The game can be balanced to make armor leveling/upgrading increase beyond five levels (base level – 4 stars level – counting the base level as level 1). So there are five levels total for your upgradable armor pieces.
That cap should be raised.
This would ultimately cause the player to gather more materials during their journey in order to upgrade armor to higher levels and have Link hold his own against the hordes of threats all over Hyrule.
You eventually become a God in BoTW and as you should; you’ve spent hours training Link up and grinding shrines to build your health and stamina up. By the end of the game for sure, maybe even by two thirds of the way through, Link can be unstoppable. Once you have all the Champion abilities, the game is significantly less threatening.
I enjoyed how much I died in BoTW because, since Ocarina of Time, 3D Zelda’s have been pretty handholding and treated the player with kids gloves. It was annoying as I always wanted more a challenge. BoTW was a breath (sorry, lol!) of fresh air in this regard because I died so many times during the beginning of my first playthrough I had gotten used to it! Fortunately, the game autosaves generously, as it should given the rate at which the game kills you, so you never have to go far to get back to where you met your demise.
However, while I enjoy being a God in BoTW in the last third of the game, I wish I felt that same sense of caution I needed to have in the beginning of the game at some points. So maybe some unique challenges can be added in – some Ruby/Emerald weapon type bosses or hidden dungeons with high level enemies – that would make leveling armor above the max is necessary.
This could go for buffs too, which have just three levels of potency.
In Essence
I think Aonuma and Fujibayashi did well to use Skyrim as source material to see what made sense to implement in to Breath of the Wild. Hopefully, they’ll go even further with the sequel. Of course, there are several other things I want in the sequel – chief among them being traditional dungeons (complete with map, keys, compass, big key) but what they built here as a foundation for this rediscovered direction of The Legend of Zelda (I see BoTW as essentially the 3D version of what Nintendo was going for in the very first 1986 The Legend of Zelda game). Who knows what EPD are up to with the sequel but I hope we get some of the aforementioned features. I know the game will be remarkable either way and I eagerly anticipate it!
