198 words about Breath of the Wild

Vibe to long walks on the beach

Going on five years since its release and I've never really stopped playing Breath of the Wild. Friends would nod and say “amazing game” when I responded with what I was playing, but always a hint of concern in their voices. “Isn’t that what Betz said he was playing last year, too?” I staved off the inevitable. I saved my fourth Divine Beast for year three or something like that. I held off on the last half dozen shrines to, like, walk along shorelines. When I finally allowed myself to finish the game, it was because I realized the joy isn’t in the journey; it’s in a world that wants you to be a part of it. Defeating Ganon’s dumb miasmic ass can’t take that away. It can’t take away an infinite number of moments that are aesthetic experiences that find vibrant specificity in the timing and manner in which you engage them. In my first year playing the game, I talked to a girl saying she was trying to follow in Zelda’s footsteps and then watched her disappear into a brilliantly shimmering morning mist. That dialogue is always the same, but that moment was ephemeral. Legend, indeed.