Or snap pictures with a Switch-like in-game tablet to populate a compendium of the game’s flora and fauna, then follow audio pings to unearth whatever you’re tracking. Here players can wage tactically engrossing battles against multistory monsters (ingeniously with just a few buttons, because how you move matters more). This makes for one of the grandest, most gratifyingly pliable playgrounds the medium’s yet seen. Just as Nintendo paints Switch as a millennials-and-up experience, Breath of the Wild assumes this isn’t your first rodeo. Even weapons are ephemeral, shattering after a few vigorous skirmishes. When the temperature plummets, you’d better have the equivalent of thermal underwear in your inventory. When Link’s health drops, players have to forage for scraps then find a campfire to cook. It’s an edgy, survivalist affair that doesn’t shy from brutalizing intrepid players (who will likely revel in the glories of being punished at last by the company). And if he wanders into an area with too-formidable monsters, since the entire world is basically accessible once players exit the starter area, he’s pretty much toast. If he swims or climbs without resting, he risks drowning or plummeting to his doom. If Link gets too cold hiking in alpine zones or hot exploring scalding ones, for instance, he dies.

Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi gets there in part by abandoning familiar safety nets while scattering heuristic-upending hazards throughout the journey.

Zelda breath of the wild switch