10 Video Games That Had A Bigger Impact Than You Realise
3. The Legend Of Zelda Introduced Console Game Saves
Now, it's no secret that 1986's original The Legend of Zelda has had a major impact on the RPG genre over the last 35+ years, setting the template for the prototypical action-RPG which has of course been majorly iterated upon since.
While the game is widely heralded for influencing open-world game design, its true lasting legacy might lie in how it impacted general game design on home consoles.
The Legend of Zelda was the first console game to include an internal battery that allowed players to save their progress, rather than having to either start the game again from scratch or awkwardly input passwords to resume their game state.
The ease with which players could immediately resume their exact progress influenced Zelda's own design, with players encouraged to explore every last nook and cranny because there wasn't any time-related urgency to plow through to the end.
Saving became an ever-present feature in consoles games in the years that followed, in turn allowing developers to shift away from simplistic, single-session game design in favour of more refined, expansive experiences intended to last dozens or even hundreds of hours.