Staying awake for 14 hours on a flight from Hong Kong to Amsterdam was surprisingly easy. My admittedly awful posture and the resultant neck pain didn't even register as I sat there, eyes glued to my Switch screen as the cabin lights dimmed, and gave my full attention to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It felt like a window to a simpler time in many ways, but it also made me more than a little bit frustrated.
There's an element of dutiful hand-holding in this game that I hadn't noticed back in 2017, and perhaps that's why The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom felt so challenging in contrast. In fact, the heavier lean toward open world exploration had me playing Tears of the Kingdom more like Elden Ring. In Breath of the Wild, though, without The Depths or Sky Islands to distract me from my quest, it's a far more linear experience that feels almost sparse in comparison. Hindsight means I can now appreciate it as the perfect training ground for Tears of the Kingdom's more complex systems – and that makes me both anxious and excited for how the next Zelda game might evolve things further.
