Honestly, it is still hard to wrap your head around what Nintendo actually pulled off with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. When it launched in 2017, the gaming world was in a weird spot, mostly obsessed with icons on a map and "towers" that revealed every single secret before you even took a step. Then came Link waking up in a cave, walking out onto a cliffside, and—boom. The world changed. If you look at any major aggregator or review site, the score of the wild game—that near-perfect 97 on Metacritic—tells a story of a masterpiece, but numbers are kinda hollow on their own. They don't capture the sound of the wind or the way the physics engine lets you set a field of grass on fire to launch yourself into the sky.
Everyone remembers their first "Wait, I can actually do that?" moment. For some, it was realizing you could chop down a tree to create a bridge over a chasm. For others, it was accidentally blowing themselves up with a remote bomb while trying to fish. This wasn't just another Zelda game; it was a total demolition of what we thought open-world games were supposed to be.
People often get hung up on the "perfect" scores. They see 10s across the board and think it means the game is flawless. It isn't. The rain makes climbing a nightmare, and the weapon durability system still makes people want to throw their Switch across the room. But those flaws are part of why it ranks so high. It has personality. It has friction. It isn't trying to hold your hand, and that is exactly why the score of the wild game remains a benchmark for every single action-adventure title released in the last decade.
Why the Critics Went Absolutely Wild for Breath of the Wild
If you look back at the reviews from Edge, IGN, and GameSpot, the word "freedom" shows up more than anything else. Most games give you the illusion of choice. They say, "Go anywhere," but then they put a level-50 dragon in the way so you have to turn around. Breath of the Wild didn't do that. You could literally walk straight to the final boss, Calamity Ganon, within twenty minutes of starting the game. You'd die, obviously, but the game let you try. That level of respect for the player's intelligence is what pushed the score of the wild game into the stratosphere.
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There’s a concept in game design called "chemistry," and Nintendo basically invented a new version of it here. In most games, water puts out fire because a programmer wrote a specific line of code for that one interaction. In Hyrule, water puts out fire because it's an element in a systemic world. If it's raining, your fire arrows won't work. If you drop a metal sword during a thunderstorm, you’re basically carrying a lightning rod. It’s logical. It’s intuitive. It makes you feel like a genius when you use the environment to solve a puzzle instead of just hitting a button.
Critics weren't just scoring a game; they were scoring a shift in philosophy. The industry had become stagnant. Everything felt like a checklist. Then Nintendo comes along and says, "What if we just gave them a paraglider and some magnets and let them figure it out?" It was a massive gamble. It paid off.
The Evolution of the Score Over Time
Ratings usually drop as games age. Graphics get dated. Mechanics feel clunky. But if you look at the score of the wild game today, it hasn't really budged. Even after the release of its massive sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, the original still holds a special place. Why? Because it’s cleaner. While the sequel is a masterpiece of engineering and building machines, the first game is a masterpiece of atmosphere and loneliness. It feels like a Miyazaki film you can play.
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- Exploration over Navigation: No minimap clutter.
- Sound Design: The "minimalist" piano score that only kicks in when something interesting happens.
- The Physics Engine: Still more robust than 90% of games coming out today.
Breaking Down the Impact of the Score of the Wild Game on the Industry
You can see the fingerprints of Breath of the Wild everywhere now. From Genshin Impact to Elden Ring, developers took one look at Hyrule and realized they needed to stop treating players like toddlers. Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki has been vocal about the influence of open-world design, and you can see it in how the Lands Between handles discovery. It’s all about the "horizon." If you see a weird mountain in the distance, you can go there.
There’s a specific psychological trick Nintendo used that helped maintain that high score of the wild game. It’s called the "triangle rule" of level design. Basically, the world is covered in hills and mountains (triangles). These shapes hide what's behind them. As you climb or walk around a triangle, a new point of interest—a shrine, a stable, a weird-looking tree—reveals itself. This creates a loop of "just one more thing" that keeps you playing for six hours when you only meant to play for twenty minutes.
Common Misconceptions About the Rankings
Some people think the high scores were just "Nintendo bias." You hear this a lot on forums. "If this didn't have Zelda on the box, it would be an 8/10." Honestly, that’s just not true. If you stripped the Zelda skin off this game and called it Generic Fantasy Explorer, the physics system alone would still make it a landmark title. The "bias" argument ignores the sheer technical ambition of making a world that reacts this way on what is essentially a glorified tablet (the Switch).
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Another big one: the story. People say there isn't one. They’re wrong. The story just isn't forced on you via twenty-minute cutscenes. It’s environmental. You find it in the ruins of a burned-out village or a diary left in an old snowy cabin. It’s a tragedy told in the past tense, which fits the theme of "wild" perfectly. You are a survivor in a world that already moved on without you.
Actionable Takeaways for Modern Gamers
If you’re looking to dive back in or try it for the first time to see if the score of the wild game is actually earned, here is how you should approach it:
- Turn off the Pro HUD: Go into the settings and turn off the HUD. It removes the minimap and all the screen clutter. It forces you to actually look at the world and find your way using landmarks. It's a completely different (and better) experience.
- Don't look up guides: The moment you Google how to solve a shrine, you've robbed yourself of the primary joy of the game. There is almost always three or four ways to solve every puzzle. If your solution feels like "cheating," it’s probably just a creative use of the mechanics.
- Embrace the break: Weapons break. It sucks at first. Get over it. The game is trying to force you to try different combat styles. Use the environment. Drop rocks on enemies. Use Magnesis to hit them with a metal crate. The "perfect" score comes from playing with the systems, not just mashing the 'Y' button.
The score of the wild game isn't just a number on a website; it’s a reflection of a moment when the industry remembered that games should be about play, not just content. It’s about the curiosity of seeing a dragon fly over a lake and realizing you can actually go talk to it—or shoot it with an arrow to see what happens. That spirit of "what if" is why we’re still talking about it nearly a decade later.
To truly appreciate why the rankings are what they are, stop trying to "complete" the game and start trying to "break" it. Experiment with the chemistry. Freeze a piece of meat and slide it down a mountain. Stasis a rock, hit it ten times, and ride it across the map. The game was designed for you to be weird with it. That is the ultimate secret to its longevity. Over 30 million copies sold later, the world of Hyrule remains the gold standard for how to build a digital playground that feels alive.