Breath of the Wild VS Horizon Zero Dawn - Open World Design and Innovation

Published: 12/18/2017

The year 2017 started off with a bang. With Gravity Rush 2, Resident Evil 7, and the launch of the Nintendo Switch, there was a lot to be excited about. Two games in particular are similar in nature and both have been hailed as excellent. The first was a brand new IP from Guerrilla Games called Horizon Zero Dawn. An open-world narrative-driven exploration game in which players use prehistoric weapons to defeat giant robots while discovering more about the destruction of the world and the protagonist’s role in it all. 

Shortly after came the Switch and its killer app, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Hailed as one of the best games in a series that’s over 30 years old, this entry’s main focus is on the freedom granted to the player through a completely open world with few limitations as they explore the landscape in an attempt to save princess Zelda and the land of Hyrule from the evil powers of Calamity Ganon.

Both are both presented in an open world format, but designed around it very differently. In my reviews, I claimed that Breath of the Wild is a revolutionary game and Horizon Zero Dawn, while fantastic, doesn’t quite reach the same heights. Let’s take a critical look at both games to discover why that is in this episode of Dissection.

Before discussing the worlds at hand, it’s important to understand the goals the developers had while designing them. Obviously with different types of games come different kinds of design philosophies and the first major difference is immediately apparent. Horizon Zero Dawn goes for a more realistic style while Breath of the Wild is more of a fantasy. This grants Zelda some opportunities that Horizon couldn’t use to its advantage.

Zero Dawn’s story takes place in our world years after an apocalyptic event decimated humanity. As such, the graphics are more realistic, the environments are more populated in ways seen in the real world, and the machines roaming the world need to be out in the open most of the time.

Compare that to Breath of the Wild and there are a few key differences. Due to the fantastical nature of the game and the fact that it takes place in a made up world, Nintendo has the ability to make the environmental layout however they want as long as it’s consistent. The designers can have more cartoony moments and animations as well as allowing certain things that would be impossible in the real world such as monsters bursting out of the ground or infinitely reloading bombs.

With Horizon’s design the primary goal of the open world is to be plausible as a real location and then modify that area to make the experience fun. Take reality and turn it into a game. In Zelda the intention was to create a giant level the player could have fun exploring, then change the lore and story to fit the environment’s design. Neither of these philosophies is wrong, but it shows that Zelda has more of an emphasis on the gameplay while Horizon focuses more on the narrative and presentation.

While both games do have plenty of differences, not all of them make one explicitly better than the other since different worlds require different approaches to game design. For instance, story progression in Horizon Zero Dawn is pretty linear, with almost no choice in what order the game’s main missions are tackled. However, this works for the narrative-driven game’s narrative-driven structure. This strategy’s biggest advantage is being able to drive the player towards a path that keeps in line with their progression through the game, making it less likely for them to stumble into a part of the map they’re not ready for and getting frustrated. It keeps the difficulty curve steady and the experience tight all the way through while still granting the player flexibility should they decide to stray from the suggested path.

In Zelda the world is much more open. While the abilities gained from the fallen champions can help the player to overcome certain challenges, none of them are necessary at any point. The player is given absolute freedom in their approach. They could end up encountering a monster they’re nowhere near prepared for, find an environment they don’t have proper armour to survive in, or even try to defeat the final boss right after the tutorial. While this design is less structured, it feels more like a real adventure with real dangers, so for the type of game Breath of the Wild is, it succeeds here equally well.

Unlocking new areas of the map is done in a similar way as well, requiring the player to climb to the top of a tall structure to reveal the environment. Both games also have multiple requirements to get to the top. Some towers will require puzzle solving, others need the player to dispatch enemies to make the climb safe, and a few even suggest the player would be better off sneaking around enemies instead. Now a few people might say Horizon’s towers are more dynamic due to their ability to move while some would point out that it can also lead to boredom if the player misses the tower as it passes by and has to wait for its return. In the end neither method is better than the other and both are serviceable means to reveal more of the map.

Also, while both games are impressive in a plethora of ways, they both also share some downsides. Randomized loot from animals and enemies can make finding a specific item for use in crafting a boring slog of a chore instead of a fun hunt. Not even the realism excuse applies here because in the real world if someone kills 50 of the same animal they’re typically able to get 50 of the same kinds of parts from that animal. And speaking of animals, both games have the fun ability to tame and ride wild animals, but both games are also terrible at giving the player a reason to ride anything since items can’t be collected while riding and finding a new animal to ride when one isn’t readily available takes too long to be worth the time and effort required.

However, where Zelda takes a big lead in quality is in originality. When looking at both games, the worlds seem pretty similar. They both have all kinds of enemies roaming the landscape for players to fight, involve hunting creatures and gathering resources from around the map to craft new weapons and items, and are more or less open for the player to explore right after the tutorial. The difference is in the implementation.

First let’s take a look at that map. This is one huge indicator of the difference between the two games. At the start of the game, Breath of the Wild’s map is more or less empty. Players can only fill the map by finding certain locations in the world or by marking an area visible to them from a vantage point. The entire point of the map is to mark where they’ve explored before and the empty areas are simply new places waiting to be discovered.

Compare that to Zero Dawn’s map. About 5 hours into the game and the player’s bound to receive the locations of just about every collectable in the game, leaving the map cluttered and swarming with things to collect. This has both positives and negatives. On the plus side, finding a specific kind of item in the wilderness is made much easier, with the player only needing to travel to the location of that item, but it lacks something very important- exploration.

When designers create a world this big, players start off the game wondering what secrets it can hold. By giving them Horizon’s map, the game essentially tells the player, “That’s what it holds, here’s the shopping list, have fun out there.” Tasking them with getting every item without much reason similar to many Ubisoft games such as Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry; Both of which are great series, but they give the player large sprawling maps that are technically impressive and beautiful without the ability to inspire the any sense of exploration or pique someone’s curiosity.

With Zelda’s map, the game says, “Yeah, good luck finding everything.” Getting lost, trying new things, coming back having done something completely different than the original goal, these are all bound to happen during a playthrough of Breath of the Wild. Players won’t know what an area has to offer until they explore the world and find out. This works much to Zelda’s benefit because it feels less like a video game. It’s not a list of tasks to be completed, but a world to explore. And it’s not a game to be played, but an adventure to be had.

Adding to that difference between the two worlds is the weather and how it affects the game. In Horizon Zero Dawn, the weather does change, but it’s only an aesthetic difference. Sure, it gives the environments some variety, but in Zelda the world is alive. When the rain falls, the ground grows puddles, sometimes requiring the player to swim when they would have otherwise been able to run to their destination. Wet rocks make climbing much more difficult. Lightning is attracted to metal weapons, meaning the player is not only in danger of being struck, but also must switch up their strategy when fighting during a lightning storm to only include weapons made of wood. All of this just adds to the feeling that this is a real, living world.

When it comes to combat variety, Zelda has that in spades. Sure, the weapon durability system is annoying, but it only serves as a means to get the player to use something that’s incredibly rare to see in video game combat- their imaginations. Sure, they could slash at an enemy with their sword, but they could also blow them up with a bomb, send a rock down a hill to roll them over, sneak past the encounter altogether, steal the enemies’ weapons before the fight to make things easier, use the magnet to swing metal boxes at them, it’s crazy! The number of possibilities in unbelievable. 

Horizon has combat variety in terms of stealth or action, but outside of the choosing weaponry and armor and setting some traps, most fights end up with the same formula of shooting the robot’s weak points and then dealing damage until it dies, maybe taking advantage of elemental weaknesses. This is still incredibly fun, but definitely not on par with Zelda’s innovation. To add to this, Alloy can scan enemies to reveal their weaknesses while Zelda requires players to experiment and develop new strategies on their own, such as shield bashing the guardian beams back in their faces.

So how does the game handle the player progression? Even if the combat is varied, the game will become boring if it’s too easy and frustrating if too difficult, so how does the each game scale its difficulty curve? Well in Horizon the game is fairly typical. At the start of the game, the player only has the cash to buy basic equipment and weapons and all of the skills are locked out until the player levels up enough to unlock them. This is a standard affair for these types of games. It allows the player to understand where they stand in terms of power and when they return to lower levelled areas it gives them the ability to feel much more powerful than they were before because their character has levelled up.

Breath of the Wild on the other hand takes a major risk in its difficulty curve design. Link doesn’t really power up during the game. He gets more stamina and hearts, but he generally stays the same. Sure, even his weapons and armor improve, but that’s up to the player’s hunting and gathering skill. While this sounds similar, there’s one major difference. That would be the player themself.

In Horizon Zero Dawn the player doesn’t have to change much of their strategy over the course of the game to succeed. Just hide and shoot arrows until the big robot falls over. In Zelda, the player has to improve at the game in order to do well. Even with the best weapons an unskilled player can’t take down a Lynel, but with enough practice some players could do it with bombs alone. And while the abilities gained by beating the dungeons can help, they aren’t required and only serve as a helping hand to those struggling with the tougher challenges. 

Proof that the game succeeds at this can be found on Even Tide Island. Dropping a player off there towards the beginning of the game would likely result in a lot of deaths followed by a begrudged admittance of defeat. But later on when the player has gained the necessary skill, Even Tide becomes almost simple to complete, showing just how well the game encourages the player to improve instead of levelling up their character. If the same thing were to happen in Horizon Zero Dawn and the player were dropped off in the middle of a dangerous area with no weapons or armor, even the best player would be unlikely to survive due to the game’s reliance on its upgrade system. Zelda’s philosophy isn’t necessarily better than Horizon’s, but it’s certainly new and completely unlike what’s seen in most modern-day games.

However, the player can’t progress or improve at the game without being able to get around and when it comes to mobility Zelda has Horizon beat by a long shot. While it does have that stamina meter hindering the player’s ability to explore at a reasonable pace and that is a major downside, it makes up for that fault in spades with its main mechanics for climbing and descending. 

When it comes to climbing, Horizon Zero Dawn plays similarly to Uncharted in that the player has a set of indicated places on the side of a climbable wall they’re able to grab onto to begin ascending a cliff. While this makes sense in the game’s realistic world, it’s limiting and prevents the player from really being able to explore wherever they want. In Zelda the player can climb just about any surface at any time. This not only encourages players to find shortcuts by climbing over a mountain instead of travelling around it via the given path, but also adds a new dimension to the game. Instead of just going along the path on the ground and turning left or right, players now have an improved degree of verticality increasing the number of options at their disposal.

So the player makes it to the top of a mountain in each game. They take a breath, look at the view, and decide to come back down. In Horizon Zero Dawn the player simply climbs back down the mountain the same way they got up or maybe takes a zipline if they’re lucky. In Breath of the Wild, the player would instead fly down. This is a genius mechanic to introduce to an open world game. It not only gets the player to the ground faster, but also allows a player to reach places they can spot from their vantage points with ease. This seemingly small addition increases player mobility and reduces down time, making the entire open world experience much tighter and more fun as a result.

Overall, Zelda’s open world encourages exploration. The bulk of the game is about being an adventurer and exploring the world. Horizon’s world revolves around completing tasks and marking off a checklist. It’s a fun checklist to mark off and a beautiful world to explore, but it’s a formula we’ve seen used in countless games before. The more linear and narrative-focused nature of Horizon’s design means that many of these choices make sense for the game, but its lack of originality due to the limitations of that design is the main reason Breath of the Wild has been hailed as revolutionary while Horizon Zero Dawn hasn’t.

If I were to give the developers of HZD any advice, it would be to shrink the map. Reduce the empty space between areas and make getting to places in such a linear experience less of a bore while also focusing more on surprising the player with new and original ways to experience the incredible world they’ve crafted. I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, leave a comment down below telling me which game should be dissected next and be sure to subscribe for more dissections, mighty reviews and more gaming content. And as always, have a mighty nifty day today!