The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Link has never been set so free

The Nintendo Switch launch title takes the Zelda franchise to a whole new level, producing something even greater than the sum of its finely honed parts

Nintendo tricked us all. For years, it gave the impression that it was content to live in its own little corner of the gaming world, making well-received updates to its own franchises, without really caring about what the wider industry was doing.

Now we know that for all that time, it was watching and learning. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the result of that examination: a game that marries the best bits of the franchise's long history with the best bits of the rest of the gaming world, and produces something even greater than the sum of its parts.