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How Breath of the Wild 2 Could Improve On The First Game
Even as one of the Switch's first big-budget games, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, remains arguably the best title on the platform to this day. That puts considerable pressure on Nintendo to make Breath of the Wild 2 an even better game, but its predecessor wasn't entirely perfect, so there are plenty of openings for improvement.
Many franchise fans consider Breath of the Wild to be one of the Zelda series' best games ever, and it's easy to see why. Nintendo's first open-world game solved a lot of the issues prevalent in the genre. For example, games like Far Cry and Assassin's Creed often present players with an infinite checklist of quests and activities on their worlds' maps, but Breath of the Wild leaves its map blank, allowing players to explore at their own pace and discover interesting things along the way.
Still, while Breath of the Wild's review scores and fan praise attest to its quality, some players have taken issue with a number of its less stellar attributes. Here are a few ways Breath of the Wild 2 could improve on its predecessor.
What Breath Of The Wild 2 Needs To Be Better Than The First Game
Traditional & Varied Dungeons
While Breath of the Wild's overworld is better than most games, its dungeons are among the worst in the Zelda series. It features only four, and each of them has the exact same aesthetic, with bosses that feel like slightly modified copies of one another. When Breath of the Wild 2's reveal trailer featured Link and Zelda exploring some kind of underground area, fans speculated it could mean the return of traditional dungeons. If so, Breath of the Wild 2's dungeons should be varied in both theme and structure, with distinct visuals and unique boss battles that make them more than just boring checkpoints along the game's progression.
Better Weapon Durability System
Breath of the Wild's most hated feature, by far, is its frustrating weapon durability system. Players and reviewers criticized weapon durability for being unsatisfying and just plain annoying, but the real problem with Breath of the Wild's weapon durability is how it affects the endgame. Eventually, players inevitably end up with an inventory full of undamaged, high-quality weapons, at which point there's virtually no reason to engage in combat at all, since the main reason to take on enemies is to get better gear. It takes a lot of the fun out of what would otherwise be an entertaining combat system. Breath of the Wild 2 should attempt to more carefully balance the distribution of powerful weapons in the endgame, the durability of said weapons, and the amount of inventory space a player is given. Either that, or just cut the system altogether.
A More Consequential Story
Another area the first game struggles is in its storytelling. While Breath of the Wild's flashbacks succeed in both humanizing Zelda and getting around the infamous and awkward "ludonarrative dissonance" problem many open-world games run into, they also distance players from the story a great deal. Since the world is already destroyed and Zelda is essentially in stasis until Link gets around to saving her, there's very little stakes to the main plot. Link can basically goof off until he's ready. Breath of the Wild 2's story should take a more active approach, involving players in significant events as they unfold in real time.
Playable Zelda
After the reveal trailer starred a short-haired Zelda accompanying Link on his travels, fans theorized a playable Zelda in Breath of the Wild 2 could finally happen. This would be a major step in improving the series' rocky history with representation, giving Zelda the power to save herself (or even Link) for once - not to mention the simple appeal of such a well-known character getting a starring role for the first time. Evidence fans point to does make it seem like a real possibility, but whether Nintendo will actually deliver on this much-requested Breath of the Wild 2 feature is yet to be seen.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was released for the Nintendo Switch and Wii U on March 3, 2017.
