10 Iconic Video Game Influences You'll Find In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

Now that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is finally here after what seems like an eternity of waiting, it's being showered with critical praise. The game is largely considered a shake-up of a now stale Zelda formula, and gamers are appreciating the fact the franchise no longer holds the player's hand with lengthy, un-skippable tutorial sequences.

The freedom of exploration is genuine, too, as key items are not locked away in dungeons that stop you making progress through the game. What's more, voice acting has finally come to Zelda as the new game is addressing long-term criticisms as well as modernising its gameplay systems.

Taking a close look at the systems that mesh this new installment of Zelda together, however, reveals a surprising range of influential games. With everything from Portal to Far Cry and a little of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim mixed in for good measure, Breath of the Wild shows that the new talent within Nintendo is capable of transforming games beyond Japanese tastes by looking to the west for inspiration.

Here's our guide to 10 Iconic Video Game Influences You'll Find In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild.

How could there possibly be a connection between Nintendo and Valve? Surface details in some respects: silent protagonists, narratives and characters players are fond of, decent world-building...

In Breath of the Wild, gone are the traditional raft of dungeons expected from a Zelda game. Without dungeons, key items are no longer given out in frustrating increments and your movements through the game world are not stopped by arbitrary barriers that demand you solve a certain puzzle or complete a certain side mission to acquire something particular. You're given the tools you need to succeed on the Great Plateau in the form of rune powers inside your Sheikah Slate within the first few hours of beginning the game.

From magnesis to stasis and remote bombs too, these powers lend themselves to completion of the shrines - or should that be test chambers? The wide open spaces, electronic soundtrack and unclimbable (or non-Portal-ing) walls mean you have to solve the puzzle you're presented with using a combination of physics and the powers you have. Momentum matters as does logic, shape and space. All of the same could be said of Portal, too.

Plus there's even the natty blue and orange glowing colour scheme to signal shrine completion, too. The shrines in Breath of the Wild certainly feel more futuristic than we are used to in Zelda.