Pushing Buttons: Why I don’t worry about ‘completing’ games
In this week's newsletter: Exploring maps and finishing side quests isn't wasting time - it's making memories
When the reviews for Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom went online earlier this month, I started to panic. Almost every critical reaction seemed to contain the same sentence: I've been playing for 60 hours yet I've barely scratched the surface". Like Breath of the Wild before it, the latest title in Nintendo's role-playing adventure seriesis a vast odyssey with an intricate narrative constructed from dozens of quests, supported by a fully functioning world. Like many other gamers my age, I thought to myself, that would have been great when I was 25, but I'll get an hour a day on this thing at most. Is it all too much?
About 10 hours into the main campaign - which, as ever, revolves around a quest to track down the eponymous royal but somehow also manages to be mind-numbingly complex, like Middlemarch with monsters - something important happened: I let go. Without a deadline to finish it (thanks Keza, for taking on the review), I could just enjoy it in my own way. For several years, I've been writing about how experiences such as Fortnite and Minecraft are no longer games to play but places to be (hang out with friends, build some stuff, whatever), and I was finally able to apply this sense of freedom to a big role-playing game. I decided I was never going to finish Tears of the Kingdom, and that was such an immense relief. Now I could have fun.
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