Linearity is underrated
Endless choice can prove more of a chore than a well-trodden route
It is a little over 35 years since the first Legend of Zelda game was released in Japan. And in the spirit of development delays that still trouble the video game industry, I’ve waited a week to write something about it.
I’m a little younger than Zelda, but old enough to have seen gaming evolve from a fringe hobby into something that even middle-aged commuters do. (Although the extent of this depends on whether you believe Candy Crush is a game or an unfortunate compulsion.)
At the turn of the year MarketWatch reported that global video game revenues were worth more than global film and North American sports revenues combined. One can quibble about the exact figures, as well as the impact of the pandemic, but it’s impressive even if only roughly true. Not so long ago it was news that video games were just making more than movies.
I love the Zelda series, and have probably played over 1,000 hours of it. Last I checked I had played more than 100 hours of Breath of the Wild, the latest instalment if you don’t count a remake of Link’s Awakening, which debuted on the Game Boy in 1993 before its Switch remake in 2019.
Breath of the Wild is an astonishing game, beautiful and vast in its scope. You wake up in a cryogenic freezing chamber and stumble out into an immersive fantasy world, filled with the series’ equivalent of fairies, mermaids, and trolls, as well as its protagonist and titular supporting character. My only quibble is whether it is really a Zelda game, given how distinct it is from the rest of the franchise.
Some of you will be tempted to dismiss this as the usual fanboy grumblings which bedevil every series if it becomes mainstream. Those drawn to things when they had some outsider kudos often feel aggrieved that their thing has become everybody’s. It is often easier to cherish something that feels exclusively yours.
With sales figures in the millions, Zelda can hardly be called obscure. But as Nintendo fell behind Sony and Microsoft as a console developer in the noughties, it certainly felt as though the company’s games were pushed aside in favour of more mainstream fare: Call of Duty, FIFA or whatever else.
I confess a certain snobbishness in this, but I’ve always found such blockbuster games to be a little soulless. As with a Hollywood movie, the production values are great, but the results lack charm. In the case of series like Assassin’s Creed the video game industry even imported American cinema’s gruff, macho and emotionally constipated leading man.
Video gaming is as prone to cannibalism as any other industry, and Breath of the Wild learnt a few tricks from Assassin’s Creed and its imitators. For a while it felt as though you couldn’t boot up an action title without being told to ‘free run’ over the nearest hill. A similar enthusiasm for open worlds over linear pathways has also gripped the industry.
The Zelda series has always been fairly open, but Breath of the Wild embraced the concept more thoroughly than its predecessors. Previous Zelda games allowed you to roam but mostly channelled you into dungeons in a given order. Progress was made by collecting new items that unlocked new areas.
Breath of the Wild largely dispenses with the conventional dungeon at the heart of this. Instead you are left mostly to wander the landscape, collecting trinkets and taking in the air. There is something wondrous about it, and I suspect it comes closer to reflecting Shigeru Miyamoto’s original aspirations for a free-roaming adventure than any Zelda before it.
It is also a much better open world experience than many games who make it the core selling point. But at the same time, the retreat from linear gameplay has prompted the usual recourse to repetition and filler. As with real life, you can amble aimlessly without encountering much of interest.
This isn’t to deny the joy of clambering over every bit of scenery and carving your own path. But what drove previous Zelda games were intentional sequences plotted by designers, such as carefully-mapped dungeons, clever puzzles and choreographed battles. Everything else, to be rude about it, was just meandering around fields.
One can take it too far the other way, as can be seen in the linear Uncharted series. But in part we pay games developers to make our fun for us. I want enough scope to explore, but not too much that it becomes a chore. Perhaps as it heads towards its 40th anniversary, the Zelda series can redress the balance.
Subtract the abstract. Returning to a favourite hobby of haggling over word choices, I discuss the temptations of abstractions in political speech. Unlike some, I think it’s easier to sell the vague and lofty over the earthy and mundane.
The Scotchening. The break-up of Britain is a favourite forecast among uninspired pundits. It’s a pleasing irony then that Alex Salmond, once the chief advocate of Scottish independence, may prove the saviour of the union as he charges his protege Nicola Sturgeon with attempting a political assassination and corrupting Holyrood in the process. For those who haven’t been following the saga, Alex Massie’s summary in the Spectator is a good place to start.
Job security. It has also been widely foretold that computers are coming for white collar jobs, including in journalism. Some newspapers have used artificial intelligence to draft reports of sports fixtures, for example. It is therefore reassuring that the Economist believes that humans will retain an edge over the writer bots by our ability to guess intention. As it happens, I said something similar last September.
This piece makes good on my threat to dabble in video games in this newsletter. Next week I expect to be back to standard politics. Hit subscribe, forward to friends and enemies, and generally spread the word if you’ve enjoyed what I’m doing here.
Jimmy