The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildis, to be redundant, a breathtaking game. It is a massive playground where players can venture through the story at their own pace. They can evenjust rock climband mess with the local Bokoblin population if they want.
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The title ofBreath of the Wildis not just a reference to the vast open world. Every element, from the designs of the Divine Beasts, to the diverse environments, convey both the serenity of the natural world and a warning about what happens when that land is neglected and abused.
6Multiple Biomes
Breath of the Wildoffers diverse landscapes with equally diverse life. Hyrule is home to dense forests, a lush jungle, beach coasts, mountains, and deserts.Some biomes are temperate, some are freezing, and others are hot.
Being that these environments are so diverse, Link mustnavigatethem in diverse ways. He can climb up steep cliffs,swim across lakes and rivers, or glide across mountain valleys. He can even use his shield as a makeshift snowboard to go down snowy slopes and desert dunes. Spending so much time in these environments brings Link, and by proxy the players, to have an intimate relationship with the landscape.
5Different Species Have To Get Along
Throughout Link’s adventures, he will encounter creatures big and small, ranging from squirrels to birds and giant bears. Some are carnivores, others are herbivores, yet they all seem to get along. They are not independent entities, but rather part of a single ecosystem where everything depends upon everything else for survival.
Link, just like humanity, must coexist with the natural world. He may also need to mount a horse or a deer for transportation. At the same time, if he pushes a horse too much, it will toss him off its back. Link must be kind to nature in order for it to be kind to him, as all humans must.
4Link Lives Off The Land
In order to make it throughBreath of the Wild, Link must consume a number of foods and potions. Link can acquire these items in a number of ways; he can buy them at town shops, get them as rewards for rescuing civilians, or forage for the ingredients himself.
Hyrule’s environments hold a diverse range of plants and animals that can be used as resources. They can be eaten by themselves, orcooked into mealswith other ingredients to create products that grant special abilities. Sun shrooms can provide cold resistance and frogs can give Link an extra speed boost. Just about everything inBreath of the Wildhas a purpose, just like all creatures in the natural world exist as part of the same delicate system.
3The Divine Beasts Represent Animals And Elements of Nature
InBreath of the Wild’s lore, the Sheikah race createdfour Divine Beasts, large mechanical creatures to combat the evil of Calamity Ganon. Just as everything in the world was thought to be comprised of the four elements offire, air, water, and Earth, the four divine beasts each have their own elements:Vah Medoh’s element is wind, Vah Ruta’s is water,Vah Rudania’s is fire, and Vah Naboris' is thunder.
The Divine Beasts also are modeled after creatures of the natural world. Vah Medoh is a giant bird, Vah Ruta is an elephant, Vah Runania is a reptile, and Vah Naboris is a camel. In this way, the Divine Beasts are not only protectors of Hyrule, but also guardians of the natural world.
2Technology Ends Up Corrupting the Land
Thanks to the Dark Magic of the game’s central antagonist, Calamity Ganon, the Divine Beasts end up disrupting the environments they were supposed to defend.
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The Gorons’ Divine Beast excites the volcano near their village, making it spit boulders into the sky and onto the landscape below. Vah Ruta of the Zoras perpetually sprays water into the sky. One would think isn’t a problem for the aquatic creatures, but it risks overflowing their dam and flooding their city. The damage the Divine Beasts cause due to Calamity Ganon’s evil is analogous to humans damaging the natural world with their activity on Earth. This serves as a reminder of what happens when humanity’s greed and lust for power goes unchecked.
1Ganon’s Pollution Is Everywhere
The evil of Calamity Ganon has left a living black goo, reminiscent of an oil spill, across the landscape. Link gets hurt when he walks in it, and it will also deliberately harm Link by sending possessed monster skulls after him.
The goo has also harmed the creatures of Hyrule,including Naydra, the dragon that watches over the Spring of Wisdom on Mount Lanayru. When Link fist encounters Naydra, the corrupting black goo weighs it down, and Link must destroy each of the demonic eyes that protrude from this contaminant. The image of such a beautiful creature in such a state of misery is essentially a cry for help from nature itself, showing humanity the great harm it has caused to all life.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildis available on Switch and Wii U.
