There is a moment in Breath of the Wild that’s the same no matter which game in the series you play. After the credits roll following your climactic battle with Calamity Ganon, the game thanks you for playing and you’re taken to the title screen. If you load back into the game, you don’t find yourself in a post-game Hyrule finally rid of evil—instead, you’re loaded back outside the castle, exactly before your final confrontation. You can face Ganon over and over, but you’ll just land in the same save state each time.
In any other Zelda game, this is your cue to put down the controller and wait another four to six years for the next one to come out. But this is Breath of the Wild: a game with an incarnation of Hyrule so unbelievably vast you can bet all two hundred hours of your playtime that there are a hundred more secrets waiting for you in some untrodden corner of the world. When you return to the game after it ends, you don’t walk in and fight Ganon again. You turn back and see the rest of the world.
It sounds trite to talk about video games as an escape, but this version of Hyrule—a vibrant but mostly uninhabited world forever on the brink of destruction—is the kind of asylum I need from reality right now. I was checking up on a friend a few days ago and it didn’t surprise me to hear that we were both consumed by the same juvenile impulse to drop everything and run in the opposite direction of our responsibilities. It’s impossible to do in a world that expects everyone to keep marching, but in Breath of the Wild, I can run away for as long as I want.
For the last couple of days, I’ve been back in Hyrule, putting as much distance as I can between myself and the blighted castle where the impermanence of my impending battle against Calamity Ganon lay waiting. I visited Hateno Village, mellowing out to the sweet rural theme that played in my ears as I talked to residents that walked by. I bought the local vendor’s store of eggs and wheat on a whim. A small Hylian child said he discovered something and would I like to see it? I followed along, even if I already knew about the sinister-looking statue he was taking me to.
From the village, I picked a random southerly direction, climbed a tall pillar, and took off with my paraglider.
The most rewarding thing you can do in Breath of the Wild is to beat around the bush. Past a grassy knoll, a thicket of trees, or an overgrown ruin, there’s usually something to discover. It could be a Korok in hiding, a half-buried treasure chest, a small Bokoblin camp, or it could just be a great spot for some wicked shield surfing. Most of the time, there’s nothing of gameplay value at all but the view that you stumble into makes it worth it.
I trekked my way south across the crescent-shaped valleys of East Necluda. By enabling Hero’s Path on my map, I saw pockets of land I still haven’t explored—and I’m not surprised that there are plenty. In a swampy clearing, a Hinox slumbered. I took a picture and moved on. I traced the spine of a mountain range called Mount Taran and found a tree hanging over a natural hole that dropped down into the grass below. I saw it on the map and was sure there would be a Korok hiding somewhere. At the foot of the tree, I spotted a lone rock. My Korok mask giggled in response.
Somewhere north, Hyrule Castle pulsed with Malice, but it was too obscured by the landscape for me to see.
About halfway into my original playthrough, I turned off the HUD. I’ve kept it that way ever since. Playing in this setting, where there’s nothing blocking your screen save for your hearts, Hyrule’s beautiful emptiness comes to the fore. No on-screen map, no indicator of the time—just you and your willingness to be lured by the shape of the land. It’s easy to triangulate your position in Hyrule without a map, thanks to an environmental design philosophy centered on the player using recognizable landmarks as points of reference. It also doesn’t hurt to have a deep, nostalgic memory of the Zelda series’ recurring locations.
I played this way for almost ten hours, allowing myself to be distracted every fifty paces. I would open my map every now and then, but most of the time, I’d just use a tall mountain to anchor my location in the world. Without meaning to, I ended up at a beach called Martha’s Landing. I climbed the nearest coconut tree I could find, but not before changing into my Island Lobster Shirt first. I’ll probably follow this wayward path of mine for another dozen hours. Maybe more.
The pandemic feels closer to me by the day. Its effects continue to become more personal. I’m waist-deep in an undercurrent of anxiety that never existed before the coronavirus. It comes almost daily and overtakes me with a persistent physical discomfort. Most games set me off in a bad way, so I’ve been careful about which ones I play. For this reason, I’m glad I’ve already dealt with Breath of the Wild’s biggest dangers during my original playthrough. No shrines to solve, no Divine Beasts to wrangle. I have no reason to be within shooting distance of a Lynel or a Guardian. The Hyrule that exists in my game now feels even more lenient, much less urgent.
Calamity Ganon continues to spew virulent globs of Malice around Hyrule Castle, but I can be as far away from it as I need to. Even if we fought, I’d still be back in the same place that I was. The game will not progress meaningfully no matter how many times I defeat him. It’s a world-ending conundrum that I’ll never overcome.
For now, I’ll stay at the beach and take pictures of crabs.