2017 was a ridiculous year for video games. Seriously. Look back at the release calendar and you’ll see Nier: Automata, Super Mario Odyssey, Persona 5, and Horizon Zero Dawn all fighting for air in the same twelve-month span. It felt like every other week a new masterpiece dropped. Yet, when the dust settled at The Game Awards, one title stood taller than the rest. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild didn't just win; it basically reset the clock on what open-world design is supposed to look like. It’s been years, and we’re still feeling the ripples of that earthquake.
Most people remember the feeling of stepping out of the Shrine of Resurrection for the first time. The camera pans, the music swells with just a few piano notes, and you see the vastness of Hyrule. It wasn't just a big map. It was a promise. Unlike the Ubisoft-style towers that littered maps with icons and checklists, Breath of the Wild gave you... nothing. Or rather, it gave you everything and let you figure it out. That's why it secured the 2017 Game of the Year title so decisively. It treated the player like an adult with an actual brain.
The Philosophy of "Chemistry" Over "Scripting"
If you talk to any developer who worked on this game, they’ll probably mention "multiplicative gameplay." It’s a fancy way of saying that the game’s systems interact in ways the developers didn't necessarily hard-code. Fire burns grass. Wind carries fire. Metal conducts electricity. You've probably seen those viral clips of players using Octo Balloons to float a raft into the sky or using Stasis on a boulder to launch themselves across the map like a human cannonball.
This isn't just "physics." It's a chemistry engine. Most games have a "key and lock" design. If you need to cross a river, the game gives you a bridge. In the 2017 Game of the Year, if you need to cross a river, you could chop down a tree to make a bridge, freeze the water with Cryonis, or just glide from a nearby mountain. Or, you know, just swim and drown because you ran out of stamina. The game didn't care. It just provided the rules of the world and let you break them.
The impact of this was massive. Before 2017, "open world" usually meant "follow the waypoint." After Link’s latest outing, that felt archaic. You can see the DNA of this game in everything from Genshin Impact to Elden Ring. Hidetaka Miyazaki, the mind behind Elden Ring, has openly discussed how the sense of discovery in Zelda influenced the way they built the Lands Between. It’s about the "lure." You see a weirdly shaped mountain, and you go there because you're curious, not because a quest log told you to.
Why 2017 Was a Total Turning Point
Let's be real: Nintendo was in trouble before this. The Wii U was a disaster. It was a clunky console that nobody bought, and Nintendo’s reputation was "the company that makes games for kids." Then the Switch arrives with this titan of a game. It was a gamble. They took their most storied franchise and stripped away almost everything that made it Zelda. No traditional dungeons? No linear progression? Breaking weapons? People were terrified.
I remember the "weapon durability" discourse. Man, people hated it. They still do. "Why does my sword break after five hits?" Honestly, it’s because the game wants you to stop hoarding. It forces you to engage with the world. If your cool fire sword breaks, you have to scramble. You grab a mop. You throw a rock. You use a Magnesis block to crush a Moblin. It keeps the tension high. If you had an unbreakable Master Sword from hour one, you’d ignore 90% of the game’s systems.
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This leads to a weirdly divisive legacy. Is it the "best" Zelda? Purists say no because it lacks the intricate dungeon puzzles of Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess. But as a piece of software? It’s arguably the most important game of the last decade. It proved that players actually want to be lost. They want to fail. They want to wonder "what happens if I do this?" and have the game actually respond with "yep, that works."
The "Ubisoft-ification" Antidote
We have to talk about the map. Open up a map in a typical AAA game from 2016. It looks like someone sneezed icons all over a piece of parchment. It’s overwhelming. It turns a game into a job. Breath of the Wild gave you a blank slate. You had to climb a tower just to see the topography, but the tower didn't fill in the map with "side quest here" and "collectible there." You had to look out with your scope and mark things yourself.
That shift from "extrinsic motivation" (doing things for a reward) to "intrinsic motivation" (doing things because they look interesting) is why it won 2017 Game of the Year. It respected your time by not wasting it on busywork. Every Korok seed or shrine felt like a discovery, even if there were 900 of the little leaf guys hiding under rocks.
The Competition: A Year of Giants
To understand why being the 2017 Game of the Year matters, you have to look at what it beat. Horizon Zero Dawn was a technical marvel. It had better graphics, a more cinematic story, and robots. Huge, terrifying robot dinosaurs. On any other year, Aloy’s journey would have swept the awards. But Horizon still felt like a "video game." It had invisible walls. It had specific paths you had to follow.
Then you had Super Mario Odyssey. It’s a perfect platformer. It’s pure joy in digital form. But even Mario couldn't compete with the sheer cultural weight of what Zelda was doing. Persona 5 brought JRPGs back into the mainstream with style and a killer soundtrack, and Nier: Automata made everyone question the meaning of existence. It was a crowded room. Winning in 2017 wasn't like winning in a dry year. It was like winning the 100m sprint against prime Usain Bolt.
Technical Wizardry on "Old" Hardware
It’s easy to forget the Switch is basically a handheld tablet with the power of a toaster compared to a PS5 or a high-end PC. Yet, Breath of the Wild looks stunning. It’s the art style. By going for a cel-shaded, Studio Ghibli-inspired look, they bypassed the "uncanny valley" and created something timeless. A game with realistic graphics from 2017 looks dated now. Breath of the Wild still looks like a painting.
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The audio design is also incredibly underrated. Most open-world games blast you with an epic orchestral score every five seconds. Here? Silence. Wind. The sound of Link’s armor clinking. The occasional piano trill. It creates a sense of loneliness and reclamation. You are in a post-apocalypse, after all. The world has moved on without you.
What We Learned from the Great 2017 Debate
Looking back, the conversation around the 2017 Game of the Year changed how we critique games. We started talking more about "emergent gameplay." We started hating "radio towers" in other games. We started demanding more freedom.
But it also highlighted a flaw in the industry: the "Zelda-clone" problem. For years after, every indie dev and their mother tried to make "their version of Breath of the Wild." Most failed because they copied the look but not the logic. They gave us the glider and the climbing, but they didn't give us the "chemistry." They still had scripted encounters and rigid questlines. It turns out, making a game this "free" is incredibly hard to balance.
Common Misconceptions
- "The story is weak." This is a big one. People say there’s no plot. There's plenty of plot, it’s just non-linear. You have to find it. It’s environmental storytelling. If you don't go looking for the memories, you won't get the emotional payoff. It's a "show, don't tell" approach that many players, used to 40-minute cutscenes, found jarring.
- "The world is empty." If you're looking for an NPC with a quest marker every ten feet, then yes, it’s empty. But the world is the content. The mountain isn't a barrier; it’s a challenge. The weather isn't just an effect; it’s a gameplay mechanic that can literally kill you if you’re wearing metal during a thunderstorm.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Gamer
If you're revisiting the 2017 Game of the Year or playing it for the first time in 2026, the experience is different now. We know the secrets. The "wow" factor has been imitated. But there is still a right way to play it to get that 2017 feeling back.
1. Turn off the Pro HUD.
Go into the settings and turn off the mini-map and all the gauges. It forces you to actually look at the world. You’ll navigate by landmarks—that big smoking volcano or the twin peaks in the distance. It changes the game from a "navigation task" to an "exploration adventure."
2. Stop using fast travel.
I know, it sounds tedious. But the magic of this game happens in the "in-between" moments. It’s when you’re riding your horse to a destination and you see a strange glow in the woods at night. If you teleport everywhere, you’re just playing a series of menus.
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3. Lean into the "Wrong" Way.
If the game feels like it wants you to go around a mountain, try to climb over it. Use your abilities in ways that feel like cheating. Use Octo Balloons on a metal slab to create a floating platform. The developers didn't just allow this; they hoped you’d do it.
4. Don't look up a guide for Shrines.
The puzzles are the heart of the game. Even the "combat" shrines are teaching you something. If you Google the solution, you’re robbing yourself of the "aha!" moment that defines the Zelda experience.
5. Experiment with "Cooking" seriously.
Don't just throw five apples in a pot. Learn the buffs. Speed boosts and stamina recovery change how you interact with the verticality of the world. It’s the difference between a frustrating climb and a breezy ascent.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild wasn't just the 2017 Game of the Year because it was a "good Zelda game." It won because it reminded an entire industry that games are at their best when they stop holding the player's hand. It was a return to the mystery of the original 1986 NES game, where you were just a kid with a sword in a world that didn't care if you survived or not. That sense of true autonomy is rare, and it’s why, nearly a decade later, we’re still talking about it.
If you haven't been back to Hyrule lately, or if you've only played the sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, going back to the original is a lesson in minimalism. It’s a cleaner, lonelier, and in some ways, more focused experience. It’s not just a piece of history; it’s a masterclass in design that hasn't been topped—only iterated upon. The 2017 crown was well-earned, and honestly, looking at the landscape today, it feels more relevant than ever.