With the release of the new Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 on the horizon, I thought now would be a great time to look back on its predecessor Breath of the Wild and what made it so fantastic.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which came out in 2017 is the most recent entry of the series. It was widely acclaimed, receiving a score of 10 from IGN.com and an 8.7 user score on Metacritic.

Breath of the Wild is a personal favorite game of the past decade because of the developer’s intent to take the series back to its roots. They accomplished this by making a large, open world with many hidden puzzles that each give you different rewards. Whether it be you climbing up a mountain just to get a “korok seed” to expand your inventory, or using the “Shrine Tracker” to find a shrine hidden behind a mountain that is so cold it could easily kill you.

Shrines are one of the reasons that this game is so massive. Each four that you complete gives you either a heart container, which increases the amount of damage that you can take on, or a stamina vessel which is used to help you climb for longer durations.

Another aspect that makes this game so beautiful is the freedom it gives you as the player. If you really wanted to, once you make it past the tutorial, you could go straight to the final boss, defeat him, and beat the game; or you could take your time, collect more powerful gear and abilities that will make the battle much easier (a little too easy if you ask me).

But the thing that I love most about this game is its sense of adventure. You have an entire whole world around you with much to explore and discover. You can tell that Nintendo really cared about making this game the best that they could, and let’s hope that they continue to do so for the upcoming game which is set to release in 2022.