Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released just over a month ago, and it's had quite an impact on the gaming community. Fans have been quick to praise its innovation and the number of improvements that have been made since Breath of the Wild, but to me, its biggest strength is in how much trust it places in us as the player.
Allow me to explain.
For as long as I can remember, games have had to strike a fine balance between showing you what to do and where to go, against allowing you to figure things out for yourself. This tightrope can be the difference between empowering you, or deterring you from going any further as you are suffocated with tutorials and waypoints to go to. Not only does Zelda strike this balance perfectly, but it does so in a way that truly makes you feel like an adventurer out to save the world. And it is fantastic.
Tears of the Kingdom utilises lots of game mechanics we have seen before - it does have waypoints and quest logs, but it doesn't force your hand or funnel you towards a set objective. Usually, when I play a game, I do so with a particular goal in mind - complete this level, defeat this boss, or hunt down that last lingering collectable. With TotK, I am happy to simply pick up my Switch and explore. This may sound like a subtle difference, but something about it is truly liberating.
Tears of the Kingdom has such a well-designed map that I am never far away from my next dopamine hit, so exploring becomes its own reward. I will set off towards the current objective marker, but I know with certainty that along the way something new or unusual will demand my attention. If there is one thing Nintendo know, it is that we gamers are like magpies - we can't resist something new and shiny. The map is littered with nooks and crannies or features that just demand attention, and almost every time I allow my attention to wander I am rewarded.
Again, I am not naive enough to claim that TotK is the only game that does this. Giving you freedom and autonomy to do what you want when you want is the goal of most open-world games, but TotK truly feels like it has mastered this art. Never does it feel like you are being forced by the game to complete a storyline or rush a quest along - talking to a quest giver will often repeat a line of dialogue or say again what they would like you to do, but you never feel an urgency to complete any quest other than your particular preference allows. The game trusts you to complete quests when you want, how you want, and in any order you choose.
Allowing yourself to be swept up by this freedom to explore is a unique feeling, and with it comes a unique sense of accomplishment. Rarely does TotK highlight an answer or explicitly tell you what to do; instead, you are given a set of tools that you know will get the job done, but the game leaves it up to you to work out how to do it.
Take for example the quest, "Mystery in the Depths." I stumbled upon the latter half of this quest while out exploring the Depths, following my instincts to the point that I inadvertently achieved the reward at the quest's end before even speaking to the quest giver, who I will refer to as 'NPC' to minimise spoilers. Later, I encountered the NPC who went about giving me the quest as normal, before Link (silently) explained that I had already done all this. Impressed, the NPC acknowledged that I had already completed this task before rewarding me as if I had completed the quest in the "proper" manner. It only helped define the feeling that I was off on my own adventure, boss of my own destiny - and this is such a powerful feeling.
I'd accidentally stumbled on something that I was meant to find as part of a quest, and TotK not only allows this to happen, but anticipates it. "Mystery of the Depths" felt like a quest that I instigated through my own curiosity, rather than a marker above some NPC's quest that basically screams 'pick your quests up here!', and it all just felt so natural.
Rarely has a game so big felt so personal and unique depending on what you take away from it. Every conversation I have had about TotK has been different - whether that be the different solutions to puzzles, or hidden secrets that I'd outright missed on my adventuring - and this feeds back into the game, compelling me to go back and keep exploring. Discovery is at the heart of everything ToTK does. Allowing you to approach the game in any way you please solidifies that bond between you and Link, who quickly feels like an extension of yourself.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a rare game that lets you feel things out through trial and error, and it places a huge amount of trust in you to get the job done. By treating you like an adult, and trusting that you will discover solutions, TotK becomes an incredibly personal gaming experience.