By GR Staff
A gamer puts together a simple GIF that shows how The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild map compares to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim map, along with other Zelda maps.
Those who have played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are familiar with its vast open world filled with plenty of adventures and experiences. With such a large map to explore, one gamer put together a GIF that shows how the map from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild compares to other Zelda titles, as well as The Elder Scrolls 5:Skyrim’s map.
This isn’t the first time gamers have attempted to put the size of the Breath of the Wild map into perspective. One gamer described how large the map is by showing howone fairly large area takes around one percent of the map’s total size.
The comparison to Skyrim’s map isn’t surprising, considering the Skyrim map has become a standard for many gamers when considering map size. Despite first releasing way back in 2011, Skyrim’s map has been among the largest available for RPG worlds. However, as the GIF of the map comparison shows, the Breath of the Wild map is a whopping 1.66 times larger than Skyrim’s map.
http://i.imgur.com/6ro0m3w.gifv
Despite its massive size, the Breath of the Wild map doesn’t feel too overwhelming. With various methods available to travel across the vast environment, and tons of activities to do along the way, it feels perfect for the game it was created for.
Now that there’s a new RPG size standard, it wouldn’t be surprising to see many future games compared to the size of Breath of the Wild, including Elder Scrolls 6, whenever that game is eventually released.
We’ll note that the size of a game’s map isn’t always the best indicator of how well the game will turn out. The GIF shows how incredibly small the maps for Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time are compared to Breath of the Wild, yet both of those games are highly regarded among fans of the Zelda franchise. In fact, besides Breath of the Wild, Ocarina of Time is easily considered one of the best RPG games in gaming history.
That said, with the computing power of today’s current-gen consoles, including the new Nintendo Switch, there’s a definitely shift toward open-world gaming. Many games that were once relegated to linear-based campaigns, such as Zelda, Ghost Recon, and Final Fantasy now offer gamers large, open worlds where they can make their own adventures.
Considering how long the Skyrim map was the standard for RPG map sizes, it’ll be interesting to see how long the Breath of the Wild map can hold that spot, or if the recent shift to open-world games will make it quickly obsolete.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is currently available for Nintendo Switch and Wii U.
Source: Imgur
