I just finished Breath of the Wild and naturally, I have opinions. Before we dive into what I would do differently, here are a couple of things I’d like to mention:

What it did right:

Making shrines mini dungeons and spreading out the puzzles was rad.

Surf and glide!

Rag doll physics gets me every time.

Weather system brought the open-world feeling home.

Climbing virtually anything appeased the adventurer in me.

Horses r us.

Tons of stuff to find.

What it really did right:

The memories were incredible – The memories made Zelda a main character and brought to light her quirks and insecurities. For the first time in the franchise I cared about saving her not because she’s “The Princess”, but because she’s a flawed, rounded character worth saving.

Art design – The game was beautiful. I also loved the culture design – from the Rito, to the Zora, to the Kakarikos, each city had a distinct feeling. The little details like the clothing, music, architecture, and dialect all came together to nail home how diverse Hyrule is.

The Divine Beast mechanics were awesome – I can’t think of a time when I manipulated the dungeon around me in such an epic way. Props.

Giving us the runes right off of the bat was a great choice, especially because the Zelda games have so many common elements (bows, bombs, etc). It let us tackle interesting problems from the beginning.

The tone of the game world – Playing in a post-apocalyptic Hyrule was unexpected, refreshing, and exciting. Weaving together the mystery Link’s memories and the repercussions of the calamity came together in a chilling experience.

Those banana loving Yiga – I haven’t laughed like that in a while. Watching them dance towards bananas made getting caught a bit more bearable.

Minor notes:

Clothing sets were a pain in the ass to change. I probably would have made a shortcut button for clothing sets.

No recipe list for reference. I would have added a catalogue.

Can’t drop items from quick select. Should be a simple fix.

Selecting bows and arrows were frustrating. Probably would have made the down arrow bow-select and made the whistle an analog click.

Item Over-saturation – Having more items meant that opening treasure chests became a less exciting experience. Fully breakable armor/weapons ended up being more frustrating than fun. As a solution to both, I would have explored the possibility of making items permanent but “useless” (need to be sharpened) when overused.

Basically it did a bunch of stuff right. So here’s the deal – I strive to talk about concrete changes I would have made during the production process if I were in a position to do so. At the end of the day I want to make the greatest impact with the least amount of work required. Micromanaging and nitpicking are pointless and the notes mentioned above are basically trivial. Am I going to stop playing the game if I can’t transport with a horse? Don’t be ridiculous. I listed the above for respect of the Zelda franchise. So with that in mind, lets get to the point.

What I Would Do Differently

Although the gameplay and design are amazing, Breath of the Wild’s story comes together as one of the more forgettable Zelda experiences because of two reasons: the oversized game world and missed thematic opportunities. In part 1 I’m going to talk about the game world

Before we start I’d like to mention a few things. Firstly, notice that I didn’t say “bad” or “negative” experiences, I said “forgettable”. This post is meant to examine changes the developers could have made to instill a more memorable experience. Secondly, I want to ask you a question: What makes older games more memorable? Many people will say it’s a nostalgia factor, some will say that they’re simply solidly built games. My hypothesis is that older games are more memorable because of their ratios of average playtime, character count, and map size. Breath of the Wild on the other hand isn’t nearly as memorable because those same ratios work against it.

How it is:

Right off the bat lets take a look at numbers. Breath of the Wild is estimated at being 360 km². For reference, Skyrim is generally estimated at about 41.44 km², Witcher 3 is 217.6 km², and Just Cause 3 is 1036 km².

Ocarina of Time on the other hand has been estimated at ~0.56 km². Just to be nice, and especially for the math parts, lets round it up to 0.6 km². To put it simply, Breath of the Wild is roughly 600x bigger than Ocarina of Time. From here on out I’m going use Ocarina of Time as a comparison because its numbers were easy to find and I don’t want to number crunch all day.

The other two aspects I want to focus on are character count and average playtime. Ocarina of Time has ~100 characters while Breath of the Wild has ~360 (3.6x as many). Ocarina has an average playtime of ~30 hrs while Breath has a playtime ~67 (2.23x playtime). The references to these values are posted below.

With these in mind, let’s talk about the problem.

Why This Doesn’t Work:

What’s most interesting to me (and one of the reasons I started writing this article in the first place) was one suspicion: Over 20 years, I suspected that the average playtime for a game hasn’t changed that much. Sure, the average playtime has doubled from Ocarina to Breath, but look at the other statistics. The playtime has doubled, but the character count has tripled-and-a-half and the map size has whatever 600x-ed is. Players’s average playtime isn’t growing proportionally to the size of the game. Simply put, the map is exponentially bigger but players aren’t playing the game that much more. Lets do some math:

The following calculations are admittedly not entirely accurate and fall under the assumption that we spend similar amounts of time interacting with characters vs dungeoning in both games. Also, because they’re averages, it doesn’t say anything about where you spend most of your time or which characters you spend most of your time with.

Given that disclaimer, lets first take a look at Breath of the Wild. If you play for 67 hours over 360km² that averages at about 0.19 hrs/km². 360 chars spread over 360 km² gives you a population density of about 1 char/km². If you play for 67 hours with 360 chars then you’ll spend on average 0.19 hrs/char. To make this easy, lets say that’s about 12 mins/char for 360 chars. If we reduce this down we get a proportional ratio of 1:30 (12 mins/char : 360 chars).

Now for Ocarina of Time. If you play for 30 hours over 0.6km² (30hrs / 0.6km²) that averages at about 50 hrs/km² (it’s higher because we’re looking at hrs/km² for a value that’s less than 1 km²). 100 chars spread over 0.6km² (100chars / 0.6km²) gives you a population density of about 166 chars/km². If you play 30 hours with 100 chars (30hrs / 100chars) then you’ll on average spend 0.3 hrs/char (18 mins/char). If we reduce it down we get a proportional ratio of 1:5.6.

OoT: 30hrs / 0.6km² = 50 hrs/km²

OoT: 100chars / 0.6km² = 166 chars/km²

OoT: 30hrs / 100chars = 0.3 hrs/char (18 mins/char)

OoT: 1:5.5

BotW: 67hrs / 360km² = 0.19 hrs/km²

BotW: 360chars / 360km² = 1 char/km²

BotW: 67 hours / 360 char = 0.19 hrs/char (12 mins/char)

BotW: 1:30

What does this mean? Well for starters, in Ocarina you’re spending 250x more time per km². 250x the exposure means a much higher retention rate. This is probably why you can walk through OoT in your minds eye while Breath may feel like a blur. On the other hand, if you were to go to every part of the map in Breath you’d only be able to spend about 12 mins per km² before moving on. OoT has 260 less characters (less names, faces, and personalities to remember) and the character density is 166x per km². This means you run into characters more often and they’re easier to remember because, in the grand scheme of things, there are less of them. At 1 char/km², characters are way more spread out and with 360 names and faces in the game, the player is tasked with remembering more. Finally, while 18 mins spent per character and 12 mins per character may sound comparable, OoT has only 100 chars while Breath has 360. This means that not only are you spending more time with characters in OoT, but you’re spending more time with less of them.

I mentioned a ratio of 1:5.5 for Ocarina and 1:30 for Breath. Lets play a game: I’m going to sit you in a room for one minute with a variety of different people and after you’ve met everyone I’m going to ask you questions about them. The first time, you’ll spend a minute each with 6 different people. After those 6 minutes are up, I’ll ask you questions about them. How hard do you imagine that is? I’d say not too terribly difficult. Lets do it one more time: this time you’re going to meet 30 people for 1 minute each. A bit different huh? This comparison isn’t entirely accurate (it doesn’t keep in mind that players spend more time with the more important characters and less time with the less important characters) but I think it illustrates my point.

So why does this make for an forgettable experience? It’s simple – if players are spending a comparable amount of time playing a game, then the bigger the game is, the less time they spend per location. The same thing applies to characters. If players are spending the same amount of time in-game, then the more characters there are, the less time the player spends with each character.

So back to the question – Why are older games more memorable? It could be pure nostalgia factor…but it could also be that while technological advancements are allowing developers to create bigger games, the average player isn’t changing as drastically. I’d argue that what makes Ocarina of Time such a memorable experience isn’t because of nostalgia – it’s because of its size. A smaller map means fewer characters and locations and if players are spending the same amount of time in-game, then they’re spending more time with with these characters and locations. This builds a more intimate and memorable experience.

Breath’s size and ratios lead to a dissociative experience. How many tower names can you list? How about even a single shrine name? How many locations can you name off the top of your head? Can you name every Chief, every Champion, every hero that helps you along the way? This land of strangers and its incomprehensible emptiness distances players from the game world. Which hill am I climbing over? And why? Where am I trying to get? Who are all of these characters I may see only once? Why should I care?

And here’s my point: When you were climbing through the pass to Death Mountain in Ocarina of Time was there any question of why you were doing it or why you should care? When you step into Skyrim’s Solitude and see a guy immediately get hanged, why does it draw you in? In Breath of the Wild you can walk into a city and literally nothing happens. No subtle guidance, no striking areas of interest. You basically enter the city and immediately look for the chief (and probably the weather gear). Maybe you’ll get lucky and walk by someone with a red exclamation mark. Many times I felt overwhelmed by the size and number of people in each village – too many people to hunt down and talk to individually. So I didn’t. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever cared less when entering a major city in any game I’ve ever played.

What I Would Do:

So you’ve got a lot of complaints Josh, what would you do instead? I’m glad you asked. I’d immediately halve the size of the game world and flesh out the essential areas rather than adding nondescript landscape. Areas are characters in themselves and when you consider the amazing tonal landscape design, condensing the game world would have made each area pop even more. Think about it – halving the game map means potentially twice the amount time spent in each area. As it stands, exploration in BotW is fun but its scope is overwhelming.

Cutting the world size in half would put the map at 180km², which is still 25% bigger than GtAV. But it makes a drastic difference – now you’re looking at 0.37 hrs/km² instead of 0.19 h/km². This change doubles the average amount of time the player spends in each area. Half the amount of landscape to remember means a stronger bond and arguably double the memory retention.

Now if you wanted the game to feel as unpopulated and open as it is, you can cut the amount of characters in half. That will preserve 1 char/km² ratio while doubling the average amount of time spent with each character to 0.37 hrs/char. Once again, half the amount of names/personalities means stronger bonds and makes them easier to remember.

For reference, this brings us to 22 mins/char with 180 chars. That’s a ratio of 1:8.18 whereas it was originally 1:30. Ocarina stands at about 1:5.5. Much more effective.

Why My Way Is Better:

Since I can’t actually prove it to you (I’m not a statistician and I don’t have access to Breath of the Wild’s logs), I might as well just tell you what my instincts are telling me.

Bigger isn’t better. If meaningful relationships aren’t built within a game, players will not remember the characters. Players are more likely to build meaningful relationships with characters they spend more time with. The more recurring locations, the more the player will come into contact with a given character. If playtime remains consistent, the fewer characters present means players will have more playtime with each character. Players are more likely to remember characters if they are unique and/or there are fewer of them.

It’s as simple as that. I’d like to create a metric that game designers could use to compare RPGs to one another to measure how effective their game is. There must be a sweet spot between characters, locations, map size, and a player’s retention of the game and I’d love to find out what it is. If one were able to create such a metric using psychological practices and memory retention, it would mean we would have access to more memorable games.

And that’s my spiel. The math admittedly isn’t perfect but in the grand scheme of things that’s how I would have approached making Breath more memorable from a non-story perspective. If there’s a huge flaw in my logic, let me know.

Part 2 will examine how the thematic aspects of Breath of the Wild fell short and naturally, What I Would Do Differently. It will be posted soon.

References:

OoT Map Size: https://www.reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/3kq46m/actual_size_of_hyrule_ocarina_of_time/

BotW Map Size: http://www.craveonline.com/entertainment/1198803-legend-zelda-breath-wilds-map-size-dwarfs-skyrim#SJOMw7uk995uxSJc.99

OoT Character Count: http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Category:The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Ocarina_of_Time_characters

BotW Character Count: http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Category:The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Breath_of_the_Wild_characters

OoT Average Play Time: https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=10036

BotW Average Play Time: https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=38019