Breath of the Wild is an amazing game, but I do have some gripes with it. My biggest annoyance has to be the rain, an entity that has caused me more pain and suffering than Ganon’s evil forces.
Estimating conservatively from my approximately 60 hours of playtime, I’d say it pours more often in Hyrule than in Seattle, or even a literal freakin’ rainforest. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but unlike most games, rain is not just a pretty environmental detail in Breath of the Wild. In Zelda, when it rains, things get slippery — meaning you can’t keep climbing. Given that a good chunk of Breath of the Wild‘s gameplay loop lies in scaling mountains (to see secrets, to scope out shrines, and so on), the constant downpour is a giant pain in the arse.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been in the middle of an epic climb, only to lose all my progress because a single drop of water landed on Link’s forehead. Hell, I nearly lost my mind when first traversing Zora’s Domain, where it perpetually rains until Link calms the Divine Beast. It’s a “problem” everywhere, though.
Let me paint you a picture. Last weekend, I was having a grand old time in a unexplored region. New area means “find the tower”, so I ran up to the highest possible peak and go to work. I was maybe 15 minutes into an arduous ascent… when the rain hit.
OK, I thought to myself. Play it cool. I proceeded to hang on to nothing on the side of a gargantuan rock for hours, but I figured I could just wait it out, right?
Oh. SHIT. It was a thunderstorm! Freaking out, I did the only thing I could in that situation: I started to strip.
I don’t actually know how this strip-down was physically possible without falling off, but bless Link’s dexterity, I guess. One problem: I forgot to de-equip everything.
MFW struck by lightning.
Welp. In my panic, I immediately went into my inventory, where I accidentally dropped my best shield down into the abyss. Sighing, and after many in-game hours of trying to climb this damned rock, I let go and went after it:
All that time, effort, and those stamina-boosting items: Gone. Thanks, rain!
After I retrieved my shield, for a moment, it seemed as if the rain had let up. Refusing to let this whole debacle get the better of me, I started climbing once more — I was going to finish my quest, God damn it. Wouldn’t you fucking know it, it started raining a few minutes into it AGAIN.
This time, Link was fully prepared (by which I mean, he was fully nude). I refused to let him move until the rain passed, which hilariously, took about two in-game days. I don’t know how Link survived holding on to a mountain without food or shelter, or without contracting hypothermia, but hey, they don’t call him the Hero of Time for nothing!
Fuck you, rain. You’re the worst. Then again, without these rain mechanics, I wouldn’t have all these ridiculous stories, huh?
Bonus: Here’s how the get the climbing gear, which should help some of you guys out. I refuse to look up the location of these items (or anything else in BOTW), so I’m going to have to live with this pain for who knows how much longer.
Comments
24 responses to “I Swear, If It Rains In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild One More God Damn Time”
always just as you find something to climb. it is really annoying. I’m hoping there is an armor set that grants the ability to climb in the rain.
Agree with the article – saying that it just gives me motivation to warp and head out in an unexplored area.
Does anyone else see the IGN vid at the bottom? wth is going on there?
Yes everyone is seeing the IGN videos, they’re super annoying.
I’ve already seen a number of complaints about the recent addition of videos to EVERY. GOD. DAMN. ARTICLE. It’s terrible, I’m sure if enough complaints are made they will be removed. It’s turning me off the site badly.
Ublock and Disable HTML5 does nothing, it’s fucking awful.
I’m using Fair Ad Blocker and used it to block those particular elements, everything else still seems to work fine also.
hm, I’ll give that a go instead, for some reason i’m unable to block that element :/
I’ve got Adblock Plus and haven’t seen any videos.
You guys should all go to the Rito and conplete their beast. Spoiler alert- you gain the ability of flight. Never stress climbing again.
you gain the ability of Falling with Style… but really it’s just an updraft.
I had that “light the furnace” quest and 5 times back and forth, accidently putting the flame away, bumping a slight incline or forgetting talking to someone puts the fire away and then on the 6th time just as I was about to reach the furnace a flash storm instantly puts out my torch…..
This was nearly the end of my wii u
The “lighting the furnace” thing up in the north-east corner of Hyrule made me curse whenever the rain appeared, but it actually had a good effect in the end; when it rained, I put the torch away and scouted ahead, killing all of the enemies in my path. (Especially those darned Octorocks… grrrrrrrr) Then when the rain stopped I could run back and continue the long walk without any interruptions.
I have to agree with plus5defense, I would love for there to be a “non-slip” armour in the game, but I’ve mapped all of Hyrule and I think I’m heading towards the end of the game, and haven’t come across it yet.
You do know you can do the whole thing from horseback? Including lighting the torches?
annoying as fuck, i had rain plus 2 blood moons which for some reasons puts the stupid thing out as well
Light the blue flame along all the lanterns on the way. Saves the trouble lol
ohhh I worked that out at the end like a dummy haha
Oh wow there are people who tried to do the whole thing in one run?
Yeah for anyone having trouble with lightning strikes, you don’t have to go into the inventory and remove your items, taking the risk of accidentally dropping them, which is a real possibility after we often go into the inventory and drop things to replace them with better items, so the motions kind of become second nature.
Instead, use the d-pad to bring up the quick-menu and look to see if the item has a green spark on it, indicating that it’s a lightning magnet. Then either select “Remove” to unequip the item or select one that doesn’t have a green spark on it such as wooden or ancient items. Remember to do this for each of the Sword, Shield, and Bow quick-menus. This also works for extreme heat areas: items that will burst into flames from the surrounding heat will have a little smoke plume on them in the quick-menu.
Other tips:
– Don’t use bomb arrows extreme heat areas (ie. Death Mountain). They explode in your face before you can aim and release them.
– Be aware that normal arrows may burst into flames in those same too-hot places, for better or for worse.
– Don’t use bomb arrows in the rain, as the fuse will go out, the arrow won’t do jack on the target, and the bomb-arrow will be wasted altogether.
The bomb arrow thing on Death Mountain got me so bad. I was mad because some Lizardfos were shooting bomb arrows at me and I wanted to return the favour, took me about 3 tries before I realised what was happening…
That EXACTLY what happened to me, too.
I like how in most of these pictures you cropped the part of the screen that shows the weather forecast.
Just going to play Devil’s Advocate and say maybe he hasn’t realised it’s there. I saw it from the start but it honestly didn’t click for a few days and many hours that that’s what it was.
Oh so that’s what that is. Earlier on I only saw it as a row of suns and was like… what is this thing even for and what relevance does it have to the time? Then I switched to Pro HUD and never saw it again.
From the looks of that mountain there were plenty of spots to hold up and take a rest, it shouldn’t have been that hard to climb a mountain.
The rain isn’t that big of an obstacle to climbing, really.
Had an amusing moment yesterday when crossing the bridge to the East of the starting point. Half way across it started raining, then a storm came in. I managed to get to the end of the bridge for cover, only for the storm to pass by. I ran forward into the next area, only for the storm to be waiting for me. Somehow, that little piece of grass between the one side of the bridge and the grass beyond determined whether it was stormy or not, so I ran back and forth between both spots for a while.
On the same bridge, I got hit by a lightning strike that sent me a good 100 meters or so over the edge and into the water below. Scared the hell out of me, but damn I laughed so hard afterwards.