5 surprising changes to the Zelda formula in Breath of the Wild

Fans have asked Nintendo to change the fundamental structure of its Zelda games for a long time now, but the publisher has finally listened.

I’ve spent about a dozen hours with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which comes to Switch and Wii U on March 3, and Nintendo has transformed its standard formula drastically this time around. To help illustrate how Zelda is different, I’ve picked five subtle changes that surprised me. And I think each of these are indicative of the larger evolution the series is now going through.