As soon as the game was released, we started receiving postcards from players… The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released on Nintendo this Friday. And a few hours later, players started posting screenshots of cross-country landscapes in the game on social networks. To believe that Hyrule, the kingdom of Link, is LA trendy destination this spring (and probably also this summer).
Of course, plot and gameplay will be the stars of the game, but many players will be obsessed with “cleaning the map”, i.e. exploring the game from top to bottom, rather than complete the scenario missions. A trend that we encounter with most open world games, where the player is left free to go where he wants in a very large universe. “I can’t imagine saying that I’ve finished a game until I’ve seen each of its pixels,” laughs Gaëtan, a morning buyer of the new Zelda. And since I spend an hour marveling at each landscape, it might take a long time. And so much the better, I put down RTTs…”
Geo option
Zelda is far from the only game to get this kind of feedback. Many video games attract players who want a visual experience above all else, and may end up neglecting the script. There are the Final Fantasy, far cry, Red Dead Redemption… “It’s a common practice in the world of video games, explains Florian, from the Games Seen from Above forum. There is a generation of players who appreciate this more chill, quieter mode. There are also more hardcore players who like to have moments of calm, softer games. They are also attentive to the details and the technical success of the simulations. And finally, there are all the network players who enjoy open world games, either to meet people or to find friends there. »
We asked Internet users to 20 minutes to tell us about their best “walks” in video games. Natasha thus remembers “the unavoidable Fallout 3, which the post-apo universe is not much envy at first sight. But what a pleasure to browse the map… Everything is full of small details and improbable situations encountered at a bend in the road! A neat atmosphere that is simply to be savored. I sanded this map in thousands of round trips to be sure not to miss anything, in defiance of the main adventure. I finished it eventually. You have to fall back on something when the whole map has been discovered…”
joint trips
Emma also has memories of playful video walks: “When I was younger, I sometimes spent several hours accompanied by my twin brother exploring the smallest corners of the maps of the different Assassin’s Creed that we had. Today, I explore the Genshin Impact map far and wide, often in voice on discord with friends who do the same on their side. It’s a hobby that I find both fun and relaxing. “Ryo Saeba also likes to go online “in Grand Theft Auto 5. But only with friends and certainly not with strangers, it’s saying that the gaming community can be toxic…”
Sometimes, some players explore games without enjoying them. This is the case of Victor: “I discovered Assassin’s Creed Origins without being a fan of the saga, far from it. It was above all the universe of the title that attracted me: ancient Egypt! The game map shows the general geography of Egypt, with all its prominent regions, but the distances have been reduced to scale. There is thus an enormous gain in density of the zones of interest. It feels like walking through a hybrid between an amusement park and a museum. Of course this accumulation of postcards is not the real Egypt, but the joy of falling from marvel to marvel is very present. From the top of a monument you can see the next one, and so on…”
The feeling of escape
The argument that comes up most often among these player-loafers is the need to escape, to change their minds, to dream of wide open spaces. “There is another relationship to time when you play a video game, explains Elodie. Compared to other hobbies or cultural practices, video games are very time-consuming. A game is sometimes tens of hours, we are used to that. But there is also a culture of efficiency, performance, the need to have strong emotions very quickly. Finally, this walk mode is an answer to that.. A need to take a break without letting go of the joysticks. »
And even if they don’t confuse virtual travel with real landscapes, fans of this game mode have the feeling of practicing a kind of tourism… ethical. “I’m not saying that the carbon footprint of a video game is great, but it’s still better than an airport,” jokes Sohan. I know Hyrule so well through all of Zelda that I feel like I’m going back to a foreign land that I love. Limit, I go back home with this game. I’m focused on the quest, personally, but it’s true that sometimes, without realizing it, I wander, I stroll. Fortunately there is always a monster, a Chuchu or a Moblin, to bring me back to reality! »