Nintendo may only have really shown off one game at E3 2016, but The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is clearly a game of a size that deserves our attention.
After a lengthy livestream that treated us to tons of footage, it might be a little daunting for you to know where to start. After such a long period of silence from Nintendo on their open world Zelda, it’s almost silly just how much they revealed at once.
Thankfully, Gamespot has kindly shared the first 17 minutes of gameplay. Rather than fuck about wandering the massive open world (the demo was only 1% of the final game), they get straight down to business and show off a teeny portion of the game’s plot.
It all kicks off with Link waking up in some kind of stasis chamber. Apparently he’s been asleep for 100 years. A voice (an actual voice acted voice!) tells Link to get up and get going.
He puts his clothes on, heads out of his stasis chamber into the world, picks up a sword from an old man and he’s on his way. This is a million miles away from recent Zelda games that insisted on holding your hand through the first hour or so at least.
Nintendo has said before that freedom and openness is key for this Zelda adventure, and that they were looking to the NES original for inspiration. In that game too, you started off in the middle of nowhere, grabbed a sword from an old man, and headed out to fight Ganon.
In terms of story, Nintendo is still keeping quite, but it’s clear that this is a Hyrule ravaged by time (and Ganon). There is a plot to follow, but it’s been confirmed that you can rush straight to the final boss if you want, though you’ll likely have a pretty hard time of it.
(Cue “Gamer Beats Zelda In 10 Minutes” articles two days after the game releases).
There are countless things in the video for Zelda fans to pore over. For instance, the ruined temple clearly resembles the Temple of Time from Ocarina of Time, and there’s loads of imagery that calls back to older games in the series.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will be coming to Wii U and Nintendo NX early 2017.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.