So you’ve been playing Breath of the Wild for more than a week. You’ve made some decent progress. You’ve finished some of the story and unlocked most of the map. It’s only natural that you’d start fast travelling.
A few days ago I noticed that this was how I was playing, at least. After several dozen hours I’ve unlocked all but one of the sections of the map. My to-do list is longer than it’s ever been, and I’m much more cavalier about fast-travelling from place to place. Open up the map, pick your destination, and boom. A loading screen later, you’re a world away.
A couple of nights ago I was preparing to warp from the Tabantha Frontier down to the Gerudo Highlands, when I stopped myself. Why was I fast travelling? What if I rode my horse there, instead?
So that’s what I did. I got on my dang horse and I rode all the way there. As it turned out, it really wasn’t that far. The Breath of the Wild map isn’t small, but it’s also not quite as massive as it sometimes seems. It wasn’t much of an inconvenience for me to ride across the westernmost edge of the map. But more importantly — and anyone who knows me probably already knows where I’m going with this — I found all kinds of cool things along the way.
There were some travellers being menaced by Bokoblins, of course. There was a spectacular vista as the sun set. I briefly got off my horse to check out an odd-looking rock formation and uncover a Korok seed. I noticed Mr Accordion in a location I had previously missed, and solved a new shrine challenge as well as its accompanying shrine. I passed a hill I’d been meaning to visit to complete a sidequest (no spoilers). Night had fallen and I decided to finally climb up and investigate this mysterious light I’d been seeing from across the map, since it was right nearby. (What I found was extremely cool. Again, no spoilers.) By the time I finally got where I was going, I’d done so many interesting things that I’d almost forgotten why I set out in the first place.
It’s nice that fast travel is an option in Breath of the Wild. It’s particularly helpful the deeper you get into the game, and great for quickly getting to the top of a tower in order to scout out new things to explore. But it’s easy to fall into the habit of overusing it. Fortunately, it’s just as easy to break the habit.
I think I’m going to start playing with a new self-imposed ruleset. No fast travel to shrines, only towers? Only one fast-travel per day? Something like that, at least. I still have so much to discover in this game (900 Korok seeds!) that I don’t want to start skipping the journey just yet.
Comments
11 responses to “If You’re Playing Zelda, Try Fast Travelling Less”
No Fast Travel in RPGs.
I’m halfway through my second playthrough of TW3 and I could count on my fingers the number of times I’ve used fast travel. It just sucks me out of the world too much. The only times I’ve used it have been cases where because of what quests I wanted to do I had to ride 3kms and then immediately ride back the same 3kms but I don’t even do it then most of the time.
That said I also walk at walking speed everywhere in pretty much every game unless there’s a reason my character would be running and spend far more time obeying traffic laws than not every time I play GTA (even in The Crew, outside races obviously…) so maybe my commitment to RP and immersion in every game is something many would consider… excessive.
Maybe if Link’s running speed wasn’t so glacial.
I’ve traversed most of the world on foot so far – horses annoy the crap out of me – and really glide most places, tbh. I find something high, climb it and glide/shield slide where I need to go.
Fast travelling for me is really only for crossing large distances to hand a quest in or something.
Remember the good old days of Morrowind, where the only means of fast travel were the Silt Striders or clever use of the Scroll of Icarian Flight, and of course the boots of blinding speed. What a game.
“So you’ve been playing Breath of the Wild for more than a week. You’ve made some decent progress. You’ve finished some of the story and unlocked most of the map.”
Ha! Most of the map? I’ve played almost 50 hours and I’m only just about to scale my 4th tower. I haven’t even unlocked half of the map if that. I don’t get why you’d warp around the map in the first place. That’s the worst way to play a game like this with so much to explore and find.
lol same. I upgraded my stamina 5 times and I have 2 full stamina circles now with 12 hearts. I just run to my heart content to kill and hunt koroks. Sometimes i take my horse out but halfway I left it somewhere to climb mountain.
Mountains are much easier to climb once you upgrade the climbing set twice.
Yeah I do exactly the same with my horse. I start off using it, but then I end up hopping off after every minute to look over here or climb over there and hours later I realise I have no idea where I left my horse
Same here, 70 hours in and have only just started exploring my fifth region. I’ve done plenty of traveling, fast travel is for crossing regions and quickly fetching stuff from far away.
Yep same here. Played for about 40 hours so far and the best part has been the little discoveries out in the wild.
My 7 year old son, I swear, thinks this is just a ‘life’ simulator. Or what he thinks life is like. I don’t think he has done many storyline quests…..but has spent 100hrs roughly in the world.
Was actually thinking about this today – I kind of hope with Nintendo’s upcoming “hard mode”, they disable fast travels entirely. It sounds like a terrible idea, but in reality it co
Pletely changes the game – you need to really learn the map, and you really need to plan your trips. In a game where discovery off the beaten path is the best thing about it… man. Yes please.
Agree 100%. At the start of the game it is quite terrifying stepping off the beaten track. Every enemy seems so powerful. After a couple dozen hours playing, you’re looking for new enemies.
Having completely avoided spoilers…..the first time I came across a Hinox was epic to say the least.