Nine Years Ago, Nintendo Changed Video Games Forever

March 2017. The month of the Nintendo Switch 1 launch, a console that would later go on to become one of the most acclaimed and popular video game devices in history (with the recent Nintendo Switch 2 also dominating sales charts). Alongside the console itself, March 2017 also saw the release of one of the most revolutionary video games to ever be created.

March 3 marks the ninth anniversary of the release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, redefining what an open-world game can be and encouraging creativity and levels of freedom rarely seen in video games. The game served as the major launch title for the Nintendo Switch and was also released on the Wii U.

Breath of the Wild was an evolution of the classic Zelda format. Ditching the classic dungeon-based gameplay, Breath of the Wild opted for a completely different approach--throw players into a big open world and tell them, "go find adventure." Traditional dungeons were replaced with Shrines and Divine Beasts, and Breath of the Wild became the breath of fresh air that the then-31-year-old series desperately needed, especially after the lukewarm fan reception of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest video games ever made, Breath of the Wild sits at a staggering 97 metacore on Metacritic. It also stands as the seventh-highest-rated video game of all time on Metacritic's "Best Games of All Time" list.

The game was widely praised for its open sandbox design, which allowed players to find creative solutions to the game's many secrets, exploration, puzzles, and enemy encounters. It was even possible to skip all the major Divine Beasts and go straight to the final boss of the game if players were skilled enough to complete it.

Breath of the Wild would go on to serve as inspiration for future open-world games, like Elden Ring, Genshin Impact, and many others. It is also often credited as the game that pushed the open-world genre forward in terms of creativity and gameplay design.

A sequel to Breath of the Wild called The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released in 2023 and saw a similar level of praise.

Recently, both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were given Nintendo Switch 2 Editions, which allowed both games to run at 4K resolution and 60 FPS.