9 Launch Games That Singlehandedly Made Their Consoles Worth Buying

3. The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild - Nintendo Switch

Halo Combat Evolved
Nintendo

Nintendo needed a guaranteed winner to kick off the Switch's lifecycle. It and everyone else knew that if the hybrid console arrived without a killer app to solidify sales, the Switch had every chance of sinking faster than the Wii U, and that was a risk that Nintendo was neither willing or able to make.

Like Twilight Princess before it, Breath of the Wild straddled two different console generations for that very reason and, of course, did what every Zelda game does - stole the air out of our lungs as the scope of this iteration of Hyrule revealed itself.

Not all were sold on certain formula changes - weapon degradation and the removal of traditional dungeons - but in retrospect, the script rewrites, so to speak, were exactly what Link and co. needed to rekindle the series' magic.

A near-perfect game in its own right made all the sweeter for giving Switch a solid pair of legs to stand on from the get-go.

In this post: 
Halo
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.