T
he grand adventure of The Legend of
Zelda began in 1986, where gamers
everywhere knew this game would be an
absolute treasure before putting the cartridge into the NES, thanks to its gold-plated candy
shell. What no one expected was the complete lack
of direction the game gave you. You are dropped in
without anything but the clothes on your back and
subliminally told, “Go, have an adventure, and kill
things!” But how in the world do you accomplish
this task? What is the purpose of your adventure?
Only death awaits you if you go north, south, east,
or west. You can’t jump, you can’t keep dodging
enemies forever, so what on earth do you do?
You talk to your friends. That’s what. By doing
so, you learn that you should enter the doorway
just above you to get a wooden sword. By talking
to more friends, you learn that you have a bit of
purpose to killing all the things, and there’s no
real wrong way to go about it, as it’s now your
adventure. Wasn’t it by talking to your friends that
you learned the secret to the Lost Woods? Or how
to find Level 8? Didn’t your friends learn from you
where to buy the cheapest large shield?
Or did you have a friend like me, who eagerly
watched you play, drew all the maps, and jotted
down where the Magical Sword was for later?
For many people, The Legend of Zelda was their
first, non-linear, almost open world adventure
experience save those who played Adventure on
Atari 2600 or the dozens of text adventure games.
More importantly, The Legend of Zelda was
Nintendo’s first “communication” game, where
gameplay LINKED you, the player, to the game
(and no, that name of the hero is not a coincidence)
and made you think, discuss, and share with others
how to play.
Miyamoto explained his reasoning in his GDC
2007 keynote speech:
I thought that Zelda could create a different kind
of communication, centered around the game
itself...Rather than making it easier for players to
understand, I decide to take their sword away from
the very beginning. See, I did this because I wanted
to challenge them to find that sword, because I
knew that they would think about these problems.
They would think before they went to sleep “how
am I going to do this?” And at the same time, I
wanted them to talk with other Zelda players and
exchange information, ask each other questions,
find out where to go next, exchange information.
That’s what happened. This communication was
not a competition; it was real life collaboration
that helped make the game popular.*
He wanted to not only LINK players to the
adventure game, but also LINK them to one
another. In many ways, the Zelda games still follow
this formula (although they have implemented a
bit more hand-holding so players never feel like
they’re “going alone”). Today’s Zelda games may
start off a bit linearly, but after a certain point,
players are never dictated where to go. They’re
encouraged to explore, fail, fail some more, try new
routes, and talk to other players for tips and tricks.
Case in point, with the most recent Zelda game, A
Link Between Worlds, Link is dropped into Lorule
and only told he must find the paintings of the
sages in the dungeons. He’s not told where these
dungeons are, how to get there, or which ones he
should tackle first.
In fact, to further LINK players to the game,
Nintendo has