By the turn of the 21st century, video games were no longer a niche subculture; they had become one of the world’s most popular storytelling mediums. And yet, video games were still dismissed by the cultural gatekeepers as a lesser form of entertainment—mindless button-mashing for basement-dwelling loners that, in the words of the great film critic Roger Ebert, “could never be art”. Gamers and those who made them wondered, ‘why couldn’t video games have their cake and eat it too?’. After all, movies held a similar space in the cultural zeitgeist; cinema was a medium that was both a billion-dollar entertainment industry and had the capacity to be considered high art. So if films could receive print space in the cultural pages of broadsheet newspapers, why must video games be siloed to online blogs and zines? And why couldn’t the storytelling, themes and visual languages of games be studied in the halls of academia just like movies are? In response to this, game creators strived to develop works that emulated the look and feel of cinema. “If movies are art,” they argued, “then why isn’t this?” Games slowly transitioned away from the pick-up-and-play experiences one would find in an arcade, and they more closely resembled interactive cinema. The thesis was simple: If Michael Mann’s crime saga 'Heat' can be written about as a great work of art then so, too, must a game like 'Grand Theft Auto V'. If the 'Indiana Jones' movies are worthy of study and analysis then surely the same must be said of the 'Uncharted' series. However, by borrowing cinema’s narrative conventions, video games have arguably never quite achieved their full potential. At least, they hadn’t until last week with the release of Nintendo’s 'The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom'.
'Tears Of The Kingdom' is not cinematic. It is not an interactive movie. Instead, it represents everything that makes video gaming such a distinct art form in its own right. Like its precessor, 'Breath Of The Wild', it is a work that is astonishing in its lack of linearity. “Link, you must find me,” cries the eponymous Zelda in its opening sequence, establishing the goal that every player is expected to complete in order to conclude the game. From there, Link paraglides from the Sky Islands to Hyrule Kingdom below. Everything you do from here on out is entirely in your hands. There are four reports of Zelda sightings across Hyrule, but when you choose to investigate them, and in what order, is a matter of preference. You can immediately climb to the sweltering summit of Death Mountain or swim to the watery Zora’s Domain. Or, instead, you can explore any of the other hundreds of things to do in this enormous world—reuniting adorable forest creatures with their lost companions, solving puzzles inside shrines, photographing landscapes for display in stables, exploring the mysterious geoglyphs located across the map. No two experiences of 'Tears Of The Kingdom' will be the same. And nor should they be. Because what makes gaming such a unique medium is the ability to shape your experience based on how you choose to interact with the work. You should not simply be a voyeur when you play a game; you should be a participant, writing the story in real time. Many contemporary games have removed a lot of that agency from players in their quest to become more cinematic. Take 'The Last Of Us', for instance, one of the shining examples of gaming as an interactive movie. Although you have the ability to guide its main character Joel, a grieving father in a pandemic-riddled America tasked with escorting young Ellie who is immune to the virus, there is only a limited amount of improvisation afforded by its developer Naughty Dog. It is up to you to tackle enemies, navigate buildings and solve puzzles to get from point A to point B, but those two points have been carefully predetermined by the team at Naughty Dog. The fates of Joel and Ellie were sealed long before you boot the game; you are just a spectator with the illusion of control. That is rarely the case with 'Tears Of The Kingdom'.
The sense of non-linear freedom has, indeed, been a component of many open world games, including its predecessor 'Breath Of The Wild', which in many respects had perfected this style of video game storytelling. But where 'Tears Of The Kingdom' excels in comparison to all of these is that it not only lets you go wherever you want, whenever you want, it also lets you do this however you want. 'Tears Of The Kingdom' does this by gifting Link with four new powers: Ultrahand, which allows you to attach any item not tethered to the ground with another item; Fuse, giving Link the chance to combine any item with his bow, sword and shield; Ascend, letting you swim up through any solid surface above you; and finally Recall, the power to reverse any item’s direction of movement. Combined, they invite players to get creative about how they explore the world. Need to cross a wide wild river that will surely wash you away to your demise? Perhaps you could use Ultrahand to build a raft of your own design. Or you could employ your Fuse to merge arrows with ice to create frozen stepping stones. Maybe, instead, you could Ascend up a mountain and try gliding over. There appears to be hundreds of ways to tackle any obstacle, and Nintendo gives players unimaginable freedom to improvise a solution, no matter how unorthodox that idea might be. Want to cross that river by attaching a cannon to your shield and essentially creating a flying skateboard? “Sure thing,” the game says. “You do you”. The word “no” is simply not in its vocabulary, and the results of this are by turns thrilling and hilarious.
Much has already been made of the technical skill required to pull this off. “Hey Nintendo, quick question regarding Tears of the Kingdom,” tweeted ‘The Last Of Us’ and ‘Uncharted’ narrative director Josh Scherr, “how the fuck did you make this?”. It is a sentiment many developers have been sharing publicly and privately, and one shared by many of the 10 million people who purchased 'Tears Of The Kingdom' in its opening week. There simply has never been a game like this before; a pure, shining example of everything the form can be, and should be. Because What Nintendo’s developers have created with 'Tears Of The Kingdom' is only half of the game, the other half is what you bring to it with your own sensibilities and creativity. They have built a breathtakingly massive, wholly immersive and staggeringly beautiful playground filled with mystery, intrigue and conundrum, and it is your job to weave the legendary fables that will be etched into in its history from your own imagination.
'Tears Of The Kingdom' is not cinematic. It is not an interactive movie. Instead, it represents everything that makes video gaming such a distinct art form in its own right. Like its precessor, 'Breath Of The Wild', it is a work that is astonishing in its lack of linearity. “Link, you must find me,” cries the eponymous Zelda in its opening sequence, establishing the goal that every player is expected to complete in order to conclude the game. From there, Link paraglides from the Sky Islands to Hyrule Kingdom below. Everything you do from here on out is entirely in your hands. There are four reports of Zelda sightings across Hyrule, but when you choose to investigate them, and in what order, is a matter of preference. You can immediately climb to the sweltering summit of Death Mountain or swim to the watery Zora’s Domain. Or, instead, you can explore any of the other hundreds of things to do in this enormous world—reuniting adorable forest creatures with their lost companions, solving puzzles inside shrines, photographing landscapes for display in stables, exploring the mysterious geoglyphs located across the map. No two experiences of 'Tears Of The Kingdom' will be the same. And nor should they be. Because what makes gaming such a unique medium is the ability to shape your experience based on how you choose to interact with the work. You should not simply be a voyeur when you play a game; you should be a participant, writing the story in real time. Many contemporary games have removed a lot of that agency from players in their quest to become more cinematic. Take 'The Last Of Us', for instance, one of the shining examples of gaming as an interactive movie. Although you have the ability to guide its main character Joel, a grieving father in a pandemic-riddled America tasked with escorting young Ellie who is immune to the virus, there is only a limited amount of improvisation afforded by its developer Naughty Dog. It is up to you to tackle enemies, navigate buildings and solve puzzles to get from point A to point B, but those two points have been carefully predetermined by the team at Naughty Dog. The fates of Joel and Ellie were sealed long before you boot the game; you are just a spectator with the illusion of control. That is rarely the case with 'Tears Of The Kingdom'.
The sense of non-linear freedom has, indeed, been a component of many open world games, including its predecessor 'Breath Of The Wild', which in many respects had perfected this style of video game storytelling. But where 'Tears Of The Kingdom' excels in comparison to all of these is that it not only lets you go wherever you want, whenever you want, it also lets you do this however you want. 'Tears Of The Kingdom' does this by gifting Link with four new powers: Ultrahand, which allows you to attach any item not tethered to the ground with another item; Fuse, giving Link the chance to combine any item with his bow, sword and shield; Ascend, letting you swim up through any solid surface above you; and finally Recall, the power to reverse any item’s direction of movement. Combined, they invite players to get creative about how they explore the world. Need to cross a wide wild river that will surely wash you away to your demise? Perhaps you could use Ultrahand to build a raft of your own design. Or you could employ your Fuse to merge arrows with ice to create frozen stepping stones. Maybe, instead, you could Ascend up a mountain and try gliding over. There appears to be hundreds of ways to tackle any obstacle, and Nintendo gives players unimaginable freedom to improvise a solution, no matter how unorthodox that idea might be. Want to cross that river by attaching a cannon to your shield and essentially creating a flying skateboard? “Sure thing,” the game says. “You do you”. The word “no” is simply not in its vocabulary, and the results of this are by turns thrilling and hilarious.
Much has already been made of the technical skill required to pull this off. “Hey Nintendo, quick question regarding Tears of the Kingdom,” tweeted ‘The Last Of Us’ and ‘Uncharted’ narrative director Josh Scherr, “how the fuck did you make this?”. It is a sentiment many developers have been sharing publicly and privately, and one shared by many of the 10 million people who purchased 'Tears Of The Kingdom' in its opening week. There simply has never been a game like this before; a pure, shining example of everything the form can be, and should be. Because What Nintendo’s developers have created with 'Tears Of The Kingdom' is only half of the game, the other half is what you bring to it with your own sensibilities and creativity. They have built a breathtakingly massive, wholly immersive and staggeringly beautiful playground filled with mystery, intrigue and conundrum, and it is your job to weave the legendary fables that will be etched into in its history from your own imagination.