Breath of the Wild is hard enough that death has become one of the most common shared experiences for players discussing the game. Link has died in all sorts of surprising and absurd ways, and it’s a joy to watch.
Image source: Alpharad
Perhaps “joy” seems like a strange word to use when talking about failure, but that’s how well-designed Breath of the Wild truly is. You die because complex mechanics intersect in ways you can’t predict — but you’re often back at it within seconds, thanks to Breath of the Wild’s generous auto save. Dying, then, can feel like a fun experiment: You’re encouraged to try whatever outlandish ideas you might have, because you have the confidence of knowing that no matter what happens, you’re never going to be punished too severely. It’s great. It also helps to feel like Nintendo respects the player enough to allow us to make mistakes, instead of making us go through the extreme handholding of some other recent Zelda games.
Here are some of the best Zelda deaths players have shared on social media.
The first puzzle kills Link
GIF source: PKSparkxx DatHottneSS
Goat rams Link off a cliff
I present to you: Perhaps the most embarrassing death in this game. pic.twitter.com/hfFqjrWOt2
— Chris Franklin (@Campster) March 4, 2017
Drawbridge stomps Link’s head
#Zelda clip from my 24 hour stream (no spoilers)… pic.twitter.com/2jb8Xj3fMB
— Hillary Nicole (@Pokket) March 5, 2017
Metal doors body Link
I let @wergle028 play Zelda AND HE BODIED HIMSELF BY TRYING TO OPEN A DOOR LOL pic.twitter.com/diCYxg6b9N
— Lythero (@Lythero) March 4, 2017
Killer raft takes out Link
GIF Source: Linkums
Link runs out of stamina in the worst possible place
GIF Source: LoadingReadyRun
Link’s shredding does not go as planned
GIF source: HilariousSaltyAfricanpiedkingfisher
Sword magnesis backfires
GIF Source: Alpharad
Catapult experiment goes wrong
GIF source: IdealisticHopefulChick
Link has a tough climb
Phew! Tough climb. Just gonna take a second and catch my br pic.twitter.com/APhINraKln
— Kirk Hamilton (@kirkhamilton) March 4, 2017
Players also have plenty of death anecdotes, too:
Source: r/NintendoSwitch
Bonus: This isn’t a Link death, but it is worth sharing:
う…うまー！
…！？
う..うまー！
#ゼルダの伝説 #ブレスオブザワイルド #任天堂 pic.twitter.com/X2ELHrI6Ka
— ゴリおしゴリ（つぶゴリ） (@tubusigorigori) March 4, 2017
Comments
10 responses to “Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Players Share Their Best Deaths”
Could you maybe not embed 10MB gifs and instead use videos?
These currently take forever to load and eat all my bandwidth.
It’s like Geocities and Angelfire all over again.
That horse is a descendant of a Skyrim horse.
Or Roach.
I actually named my first chestnut horse Roach in the game ?
Best looking death I’ve had is where I got hit with a bomb arrow while on horse back, horse died and flung me off a cliff.
Not a death, but I had an excellent sword, pressed the wrong button and watched the sword go sailing over the edge of a cliff and down into the water, looked great watching it spinning away from me though.
I accidentally blew myself off a mountain path trying to fight bokoblins with the bomb rune.
I was trying to push a boulder on to some bokoblins because they were having fun with friends and I wasn’t.
I slipped past the rock, fell off the cliff, then had the rock land on me like a roadrunner cartoon.
Afaik, the bokoblins are still there.
Man, I haven’t had any good deaths, or even funny moments. I’m a boring player 😛
Today I jumped into a lake with the intention of climbing over the small rocky cliff on the other side and continuing on my way. When I was in the lake it started raining and Link couldn’t keep his grip on the cliff face. I kept slipping back into the water and eventually drowned.
In my first encounter with one of those big stone golems, there was a bitchin’ thunderstorm amping up the atmosphere. I had it down to a sliver of health when a bolt of lightning struck my hammer and blew me right off its back. Good times.