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Gravity, wind, fire, and propulsive forces can all be harnessed to launch Link to places that initially seem impossible to reach, and each new discovery makes Hyrule even more vast and unknowable.
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Nintendo generated Breath of the Wild’s now-signature exploration style by engineering a detailed simulation of the physical world.
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It's through all this that a genuine sense of accomplishment is achieved, which in turn makes the discoveries on the other side of those challenges all the more spectacular, regardless of if that’s valuable treasure or a priceless vista. You may need to plot an exhausting climb, risk a dangerous drop, paraglide an awkward route, or combine more unusual techniques to reach a point of interest. That’s why the very topography of Hyrule, from its steep mountains to its floating islands, is designed to provide navigation challenges that require genuine effort and planning to conquer. Since there are few pre-plotted objectives, the unknown journey towards your chosen goal is as important as the destination itself. Instead, the architecture of Tears of the Kingdom’s world is designed to draw your attention and encourage you to uncover its untold secrets. This is why, outside of the main quest, you’re offered very little direction. Their core mechanics are built around the authentic sense of adventure that organic, freeform discovery can bring. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and its predecessor, Breath of the Wild, are emblematic of that play-how-you-want philosophy. For others it’s providing the tools so that you can freely explore a world how you want. For some developers this means offering a wide range of activities, buffet-style, to ensure you’re always free to play what you want. The thing that truly separates open worlds from linear games, though, is freedom. It combines geography, architecture, populations, and events to create a living city, region, or kingdom. Where linear game design delivers slices of another reality, the open world aims to simulate on a grander level. It’s that core fantasy that has seen the concept of the open world flourish what better way is there to create a sense of discovering a new world than to build one with as much depth and as few borders as possible? That goal has seen the open world advance from a form of environment design to a whole diverse genre in its own right. Unlike books and films, they allow us to not just be immersed in another land but to truly explore one. Since their inception, video games have acted as portals to other worlds.
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