10 Times Video Game Realism Went Too Far

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild was met with near-universal acclaim upon its March 2017 release, but one particular element of its gameplay that wasn't completely beloved was its weapon durability.

The weapons in Breath Of The Wild - swords, clubs, axes, and the like - each have a certain amount of hits that they can take before becoming badly damaged, and if you continue to use them after this point, they'll soon break apart.

It's obviously not true-to-life realism - swords don't just shatter when you use them, after all - but it's trying to be more realistic than the vast majority of games, which let you hack and slash infinitely, without your weapons suffering a single scratch.

And to be frank, there's a reason why all those other games do things that way: weapon durability isn't an enjoyable mechanic.

There are those who say that it encourages players to try new weapons, and that it increases immersion, but these are both weak arguments. If the range of weapons in Breath Of The Wild was interesting enough to begin with, players would want to experiment naturally, without being forced to do so just because their sword broke.

And as for the immersion argument, well, when so many things about this game obviously aren't realistic in the slightest, it's a bit confusing that the devs chose to add some realism by infuriating their players with constant weapon breaks.