is a 2017 action-adventure game developed by Nintendo EPD for the Wii U and Nintendo Switch. Set near the end of the Zelda timeline, it follows Link as he sets out to save Princess Zelda and prevent Calamity Ganon from destroying the world. The player explores the open world of Hyrule, collects items, and completes objectives such as puzzles and side quests. Breath of the Wild world is unstructured and encourages exploration and experimentation; the story can be completed in a nonlinear fashion.
The five-year development commenced after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011). Led by the director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and the producer Eiji Aonuma, EPD sought to rethink Zelda conventions and introduced elements such as detailed chemistry and physics engines. EPD drew inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus (2005) and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011). Monolith Soft, developer of the Xenoblade series, assisted in designing landscapes and topography due to their experience in developing open world games.
Breath of the Wild was released on March 3, 2017, as the final Nintendo-published Wii U game and as a launch game for the Switch. It received acclaim, with praise for its gameplay, open-world design, and attention to detail, though some reviewers criticized its technical performance. Breath of the Wild won numerous year-end accolades, including Game of the Year at the 2017 Game Awards and the 21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. It broke sales records for a Nintendo launch game and sold 35.76 million copies by June 2026, making it the bestselling Zelda game and one of the bestselling video games.
Breath of the Wild is considered one of the greatest video games of all time; journalists described it as a landmark in open world design for its emphasis on experimentation, physics-based sandbox, and emergent gameplay. Numerous developers cited Breath of the Wild as inspiration, and it is a popular point of comparison among open-world games. A spinoff, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, was released in 2020, and a sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, was released in 2023. An enhanced version for the Nintendo Switch 2 was released on June 5, 2025.
Gameplay
Breath of the Wild is an open-world action-adventure game. Players are tasked with exploring the kingdom of Hyrule while controlling Link. Breath of the Wild encourages nonlinear gameplay, which is illustrated by the lack of defined entrances or exits to areas, scant instruction given to the player, and encouragement to explore freely. Breath of the Wild introduces a consistent physics engine to the Zelda series, letting players approach problems in different ways rather than trying to find a single solution. The "chemistry engine" defines the physical properties of most objects and governs how they interact with the player and one another. For example, during thunderstorms, metal objects will attract powerful lightning strikes; the player must be careful not to carry metal, but may also throw metal objects at enemies to draw lightning to them. These design approaches result in a generally unstructured and interactive world that rewards experimentation and allows for nonlinear completion of the story.
As Link, players can perform actions such as running, climbing, swimming, and gliding with a paraglider, although Link is limited by his stamina. Link can procure items from the environment, including weapons, food, and other resources. Unlike in previous Zelda games, weapons and shields degrade through use, eventually shattering. Many items have multiple uses; for example, wooden weapons can light fires, wooden shields can collect incoming enemy arrows, and certain shields can be used as makeshift snowboards. Players can obtain food and materials for elixirs from hunting animals, gathering wild fruit, or collecting parts of defeated enemies. By cooking combinations of food or materials, the player can create meals and elixirs that can replenish Link's health and stamina, or provide temporary status bonuses such as increased strength or resistance to heat or cold.
An important tool in Link's arsenal is the "Sheikah Slate", a magical stone tablet which can be used to mark waypoints on the in-game map and take pictures of materials, creatures, and enemies. These pictures are stored in the "Hyrule Compendium", an in-game photo album that can be used to locate valuable items. The Sheikah Slate also gives the player the ability to create remote bombs, manipulate metal objects, form ice blocks on watery surfaces, and temporarily stop certain objects in time. In combat, players can lock onto targets for more precise attacks, while certain button combinations allow for advanced offensive and defensive moves. Players may also defeat enemies without weapons, such as by rolling boulders off cliffs into enemy camps.
Besides exploration, players can undergo quests or challenges to obtain certain benefits. Activating towers and shrines will add waypoints to the map that the player may warp to at any time. Activating towers also reveals territories on the Sheikah Slate's map, although location names are not added until the player explores that area. Dotted throughout Hyrule are shrines that contain challenges ranging from puzzles to battles against robotic opponents. Clearing shrines earns Spirit Orbs; after earning four of these orbs, they can be traded for additional health or stamina points. When Link has at least 13 hearts, he can reclaim the Master Sword in the Korok Forest. The Master Sword is the only unbreakable weapon, but it can run out of energy after extended use, requiring a 10-minute recharge. In addition to shrines, the Divine Beasts, giant mechanical animals, act as extended puzzles, each based around a unique animal and element. Scattered across Hyrule are small puzzles which, after solving them, will reward the player with Korok Seeds, which can be traded to expand inventory size for weapons, shields, and bows. Towns, villages, and horse stables serve as hot-spots for quests, sidequests, and shops that sell materials and clothing. Hikers and other travelers offer sidequests, hints, or conversation. Additionally, players can scan Amiibo figures with their controller to summon items or call Link's horse Epona from previous Zelda games and Wolf Link from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
The Nintendo Switch 2 version includes new features such as support for Zelda Notes, a service on the Nintendo Switch App featuring audio recordings by Princess Zelda to assist players with gameplay.
Plot
Breath of the Wild takes place at the end of the Zelda timeline in the kingdom of Hyrule. An amnesiac warrior named Link awakens in a chamber called the Shrine of Resurrection, located on the Great Plateau overlooking Hyrule. He encounters an old man who eventually reveals himself as the lingering spirit of Rhoam, the last king of Hyrule. He explains that Link has been slumbering in the Shrine of Resurrection for a century, and narrates the history of the kingdom and Link's own past.
In ancient times, the Sheikah race had developed Hyrule into an advanced civilization, protected by four enormous animalistic machines called the Divine Beasts and an army of autonomous weapons called Guardians. When an ancient evil known as Calamity Ganon appeared and threatened Hyrule, four great warriors were given the title of Champion, and each piloted one of the Divine Beasts to weaken Ganon. Meanwhile, the princess of Hyrule, who possessed the blood of the Goddess Hylia, sealed Ganon away while being protected by her appointed knight.
Ten millennia later, the kingdom of Hyrule had regressed to a medieval state. Reading their ancestors' prophecies, Hyrule's peoples recognized the signs of Ganon's return and excavated surrounding areas to uncover the Divine Beasts and Guardians. During this time, Princess Zelda trained vigorously to awaken the sealing magic needed to defeat Ganon while trying to maintain her personal research into the Divine Beasts. A knight was appointed to protect her: Link, who was chosen due to his ability to wield the Master Sword. After being sought out by Zelda, the Champions—Mipha, princess of the aquatic Zora; Revali, archer of the birdlike Rito; Daruk, warrior of the mountainous Gorons; and Urbosa, chief of the desert-dwelling Gerudo—assembled to pilot the Divine Beasts while Zelda and Link would face Ganon directly.
When Ganon appeared on Zelda's seventeenth birthday, he possessed the Guardians and Divine Beasts, turning them against Hyrule. King Rhoam and the Champions were killed, and Link was gravely wounded protecting Zelda. Zelda unlocked her sealing powers, using them to save Link. Zelda had Link taken to the Shrine of Resurrection for him to heal, hid the Master Sword in Korok Forest under the protection of the Great Deku Tree, and used her light magic to seal herself and Ganon in Hyrule Castle. Rhoam finishes his story by explaining that Ganon has grown stronger while sealed in Hyrule Castle, and pleads for Link to defeat Ganon before he regains his strength and destroys the world.
Link leaves the plateau and reunites with Impa, a Sheikah elder who previously served the royal family, and she instructs him to free the Divine Beasts. Link travels across Hyrule, returning to locations from his past and regaining his memories. At the behest of Hyrule's peoples, he boards the four Divine Beasts and severs them from Ganon's control, freeing the spirits of Hyrule's fallen Champions and allowing them to pilot the Divine Beasts. In this endeavor, Link is assisted by Sidon, the Zora prince and Mipha's younger brother; Yunobo, Daruk's cowardly descendant; Teba, a Rito warrior; and Riju, the young chief of the Gerudo. After obtaining the Master Sword from Korok Forest, Link enters Hyrule Castle and confronts Ganon. The Divine Beasts weaken him, and after Link defeats him, he transforms into Dark Beast Ganon. Zelda gives Link the Bow of Light, which allows him to weaken Ganon enough for Zelda to seal him away, restoring peace and allowing the spirits of King Rhoam and the Champions to depart to the afterlife. If the player completes an optional quest that involves Link regaining all of his memories, they unlock a post-credits cutscene in which Zelda declares that Hyrule must be rebuilt and that she and Link must begin the process by themselves. As Link and Zelda survey Hyrule, the princess confides in him that although her powers may have dwindled over time, she has come to terms with it.
Development
Nintendo EPD, an internal division of Nintendo, developed Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch and Wii U. According to series producer Eiji Aonuma, the development team aimed to "rethink the conventions of Zelda". Development started immediately upon the release of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011).Dark Horse Books (2018), p. 416 Aonuma received comments from players who wished to see a more interconnected map to explore the locales between the gameplay areas. In 2013, Nintendo experimented with nonlinear gameplay in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, which was a common point of praise from many outlets. At E3 2014, Aonuma said he planned to reform dungeons and puzzles—two of the series' major gameplay elements—and redesign the game to allow players to reach the end without progressing through the story. As Nintendo had never developed an open-world game on the scale of Breath of the Wild, they looked at The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Shadow of the Colossus, the latter of which has similar climbing mechanics and whose creator, Fumito Ueda, was friends with Aonuma. For the art style, the team drew inspiration from various Japanese anime which they had grown up watching. The protagonist, Link, was redesigned, with Aonuma purposely making him more gender neutral so that players could more easily relate to him.