Game Flow: Breath of the Wild

This will be the first in a (hopefully) long series of posts where I review various modern video games’ pros and cons related to flow theory. Doing so will provide a psychological theory-grounded approach to determining how fun, engaging, or immersive these games are. Many games will simply be too big to cover every aspect of each of them, but I will at least go over the main points for each condition of flow. For a review of flow theory, see my first post here: What is flow? Without further ado, let’s take a look at The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Challenge and Skill. These two conditions are often linked to similar game features, so we will talk about both at once. Last week we mentioned the gradually increasing difficulty of Tetris and how this ensures that the player will find a level of challenge that matches their level of skill. Similarly, by starting slow, Tetris allows players to hone their skills as they progress. Obviously, Breath of the Wild is a much different game than Tetris, but the same principles apply, just in slightly different ways. Because Breath of the Wild is a completely open-world game, it is difficult to gradually increase challenge as the player progresses, since progress can be made in any direction at any time. This also makes it difficult to allow the player to gradually improve their skills while maintaining their ability to move freely anywhere in the world. Breath of the Wild’s solution to this problem solves it quite well, at least with regard to combat: rather than making different areas of the world significantly more dangerous than others, the strength of the monsters the player faces simply increases as the player defeats more of them. This allows the player to explore the world as they like, without the need to worry about enemies being far too powerful to defeat. By ensuring that enemies all across the world are relatively weak to begin with, Breath of the Wild gives the player the chance to obtain better equipment and practice fighting. Despite being a huge, open-world action-adventure game, Breath of the Wild manages to match the gradual challenge and skill increase that we see in Tetris.

In addition to the above combat difficulty mechanics, Breath of the Wild includes an initial tutorial section where the player obtains and learns how to use all the tools they’ll need for the rest of the game. This is a very interesting approach, and an especially unique one for a Zelda game, where the player typically collects new tools at every turn until the end of the game. By limiting the number of tools in the game, Breath of the Wild makes it easier for the player to learn and master each of them. And by providing a relatively safe environment in which to practice using those tools, the player can hone their skills before setting off into the larger world. Once the player does begin to explore the world, the challenges involving the use of those tools are widely varied, but generally increase in difficulty the further the player goes from the starting area. Of course, none of these challenges are required, so the player is free to improve their skills before attempting any of them. This is one of the main benefits of an open-world game on flow: there is a wide range of challenges, and the player can freely choose to take on those challenges that are appropriate to them. Additionally, the open-endedness of the game allows for creative solutions to challenging problems.

One area where the game does have objectively easier or harder encounters is the various “Test of Strength” shrines located across the world. For the most part, the more difficult ones are located further from the beginning area, but a player could still encounter one of the harder ones before seeing any of the easier ones. A solution to this could have been one similar to the scaling difficulty of enemies, where the first time a player enters any “Test of Strength” shrine, it is always the easiest one, and then each new one becomes more difficult as the player completes previous versions. However, the option to simply skip one that is currently too difficult is always available, so this problem is not too severe.

Goals. There is one obvious goal in Breath of the Wild: defeat Calamity Ganon and save Hyrule. However, this is not a proximal goal (unless you are a speedrunner), so there must be smaller goals that are more achievable from the start. The player does receive some prompts at the beginning of the game, telling them about points of interest throughout the world, but once they complete the tutorial section, the entire world becomes available to explore. This leaves the setting of goals largely up to the player. Once the player enters a shrine, reaches a divine beast, or approaches an enemy camp, their goal becomes clear, but the parts between those encounters have the potential to be devoid of goals. For this reason, the flow condition of clear, proximal goals may be Breath of the Wild’s weakest, which makes sense for an open-world game. Such an open-ended game naturally has nearly limitless potential for player-set goals, but leaves open the possibility for unclear or distant goals, which are not as conducive to flow.

Feedback. While the goals in Breath of the Wild are often up to the player to set for themselves, the game does provide good, immediate feedback. Starting with combat, Breath of the Wild displays health bars for enemies so that the player can track how much damage they’re doing. There is also a piece of equipment that displays exact values for enemy health to give more precise feedback. The player can also see their own health to track any damage they receive. If there is one aspect of combat in Breath of the Wild that could be improved upon with regard to feedback, it is weapon durability tracking. A weapon not lasting the duration of the fight can be detrimental, and the game only gives a warning once the weapon is very close to breaking. A more precise feedback system regarding durability would help the player better know when they need to find more weapons.

When it comes to the shrines and divine beasts, Breath of the Wild has some systems in place to provide feedback on progress. The colors used throughout the game, but particularly in shrines, let the player know which objects are important, as well as when the player has successfully interacted with them. Audio cues also indicate important events, such as the completion of a puzzle or the start of combat. In the divine beasts, the map provides information about the player’s location as well as points of interest. All of these features help the player understand what they’re doing and what is going on around them.

Overworld exploration has numerous features in place to provide immediate feedback on the player’s activity. In addition to the health bars mentioned above, stamina, temperature, and even level of noise produced are all made available for the player to see. Local weather, time of day, and location can also be tracked in Breath of the Wild’s user interface. Just as with the shrines, the player can use visual or audio cues to know when something important is present in the world. Oddly shaped stones or suspicious circles of lily pads hint at the presence of a Korok, and a satisfying jingle accompanies a successfully solved puzzle to find them. When attempting to tame a wild horse, hearts appear to indicate progress along the soothing process. All of these features give the player immediate feedback so they know whether what they’re doing is accomplishing what they want.

Conclusion. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an open-world action-adventure game. It handles the difficulty of balancing challenge and skill by gradually increasing the challenge presented by enemies, and it allows players the freedom to come up with creative solutions or skip encounters entirely. Proximal goals are set as players enter new shrines or come upon new areas, but between such encounters, the goal is not as in-view. The game does, however, provide good, immediate feedback on many parameters. Some ways to improve the flow experience could be to offer clear smaller goals for players and to give more complete feedback on weapon durability. Overall, Breath of the Wild is a very good game for promoting flow.