Hey Chris, So I'm not a big fan of openworld game design. Generally, it just feels like padding or "going through the motions," with towers, thousands of points of interest that rarely amount to anything meaningful, etc... What does Breath of the Wild do to mitigate the monotony of traditional openworld game design?
A lot of open world games feel checklisty. This is a big Ubisoft problem, but it also came up again for Horizon Zero Dawn, and was one of my biggest criticisms for that game.
But with Breath of the Wild, it doesn't feel like going through the motions. You can make your own stories by raiding a Bokoblin camp, finding out a new cooking recipe on your own, chopping down some trees, or meet some wacky Nintendo character while you're traveling from point A to point B. The map isn't loaded down with billions of icons to fetch, just the active quest you've chosen at the time.
Take radio towers. Breath of the Wild has them. But they aren't too numerous, and most of them have their own little mini-puzzles to solve, as well as an interesting character to meet at the top that has a unique sidequest. Looking over the massive spires into the open world is actually fun, and you can use a telescope (with its own icon/stamp creator) to scout out new locations. They went above and beyond the typical open world blueprint.
