Common Sense Media Review
By Chad Sapieha
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Vast adventure with some combat rewards logical thinking.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 10+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Videos and Photos
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 71 parent reviews
Parents say the game is widely regarded as one of the best ever made, praised for its immersive and expansive open-world environment, beautiful graphics, and engaging puzzles. It is noted for being family-friendly with minimal violence, making it suitable for children, yet some caution that younger players may need assistance with its challenges.
- immersive experience
- minimal violence
- family-friendly
- challenging puzzles
- beautiful graphics
- suitable for children
Summarized with AI
Summarized with AI
Based on 269 kid reviews
Kids say this game is fantastic and very kid-friendly, with a beautiful art style and an engaging story that captivates players of all ages. Reviewers appreciate the vast open world, various gameplay mechanics, and overall lack of graphic violence, making it a recommended choice despite some challenging puzzles and mild mature themes.
- kid-friendly
- beautiful art
- engaging story
- vast open world
- mild violence
- challenging puzzles
Summarized with AI
What's It About?
As with all Zelda games, THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD is set in the fantastical realm of Hyrule, a world filled with a mix of familiar animals and fantastical creatures and populated by several intelligent races, chief among them the human/elf-like Hylians. Players once again take control of the timeless hero Link, who wakes up without any memories in the Temple of Time and gradually learns that his kingdom was destroyed long ago. Now it's up to him to journey on an epic quest to defeat the evil entity that brought ruin to his country and nearly killed him a century ago: Calamity Ganon. Unlike previous Zelda games, this one provides players an enormous open world to freely explore. It's filled with plains, mountains, deserts, towns, and more. Much of the game is focused on exploration and survival, with Link needing to gather, kill, and cook his own food and work out how to survive drastically different climates, scale cliffs, and battle monsters. He also explores scores of shrines, each one containing clever puzzles that need to be solved to earn orbs that will increase his stamina and life. There are dozens of hours of side activities that can be tackled in any order players wish, but Link's primary goal throughout is to recover his memories, grow in strength, and gather the forces necessary to confront and defeat Calamity Ganon.
Is It Any Good?
Nintendo's iconic adventure series has finally taken its first steps into modern open-world play, and it's done so in a way few other franchises could muster. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an absolutely huge game, providing players with a vibrant and colorful world that presents itself almost like a living painting. And over every hill, ridge, and mountain lies one or more new locations that you'll want to explore, such as towns full of interesting characters and shops, shrines loaded with puzzles and treasures, imaginative monsters to challenge, and secrets waiting under rocks and within old ruins. Keeping track of everything would be nearly impossible were it not for Link's tablet-like Sheikah Slate, which lets you place pins in a map to denote areas of interests and allows you to capture photographs of everything encountered -- animals, monsters, plant life, and more -- for posterity or to be used as a method for future tracking.
A lot of this is common to many open-world games, but Breath of the Wild injects its own flavor via an upbeat atmosphere, quirky characters, and an all-ages sense of humor. More than that, it adds little details -- many to do with survival -- that other games haven't dared. A storm in the distance? Better store anything made of metal, lest Link risk getting struck by lightning. A mountain in your way? No need to go around. Link can climb virtually any surface (so long as he has the stamina required and rain doesn't come along to make the surface slick). All players need to guide them is common sense and a curiosity to seek and discover. Nintendo's designers have taken care of everything else. And in doing so they've created the first essential game for Nintendo Switch.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about screen time. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an enormous game with few clear boundaries between objectives, making it easy to just keep playing, but how do you limit sessions based on duration rather than accomplishing specific tasks?
Discuss duty and responsibility. If you woke up after 100 years with no memory of the past, would you feel obligated to fulfill the obligations of your former self? What makes something your responsibility?
Game Details
- Platforms : Nintendo Switch , Nintendo Wii U
- Pricing structure : Paid
- Available online? : Available online
- Publisher : Nintendo of America
- Release date : March 3, 2017
- Genre : Role-Playing
- Topics : Fantasy ( Magic ) , Adventures , Animals ( Wild Animals )
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : November 6, 2025
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