The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild Accessibility Report - Switch and Wii U - Family Gaming Database (2024)

The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild departs from the previous Zelda formula with the scale and depth of its world. You walk, fly, ride and climb your way through a landscape that varies in climate, terrain, inhabitants and vegetation. Weather and the passage of the sun and moon extend the deep encounter with the fantastical world, but it’s the sense of history in the dilapidated buildings and long-untouched wilds that draw you in. You must work with the land, foraging for food, scaling snow-covered mountains and searching for shade in scalding deserts to continue your quest to uncover its history and restore balance.

External examiner, Brian Fairbanks, first checked The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild accessibility 3 years ago. It was re-examined by Ben Kendall and updated 11 months ago.

Controls

We've documented 5 accessibility features for Controls in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild which deal with how you control the game, different options for alternative inputs and whether you can remap these settings to suit your needs.

Gamepad

Can play with the following:

Can play with multiple buttons and two sticks.

Motion

Games that can be played with different sorts of motion controllers.

Motion Aiming: Can use small movements of the gamepad to fine-tune aiming or as the main aiming mechanism. This is sometimes known as Gyro-Aiming. This usually provides the ability to calibrate these controls to taste.

Motion Tilting: Can use movements of the controller to replace steering or simple movement otherwise controlled by left/right movement of a stick.

Remap Controls

Can customise the controls for the game as follows:

Invert X/Y Axis: Can invert the direction required to control looking and aiming. This enables you to match your instinctive orientation when looking.

Sensitivity

You can adjust

Adjust Mouse/Stick/Touch Sensitivity: Adjust how sensitive touch/mouse/stick controls are.

Similar Games With More Accessibility Features for Controls

If you want to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, but it doesn't offer the Controls accessibility features you require, these similar games extend the Controls accessibility:

• Submerged Hidden Depths (17 Controls Features)
• Sail Forth (16 Controls Features)
• Immortals Fenyx Rising (14 Controls Features)
• Craftopia (11 Controls Features)

Getting Started

We've documented 4 accessibility features for Getting Started in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild which deal with what support is offered to get started with the game. This includes customising the experience when you first open the game via any onboarding processes it provides as well as tutorials and other assistance when you first start playing.

Assistance Getting Starting

These features aid your play of the game in terms of cognitive load on learning controls, dealing with pressure and coping with the environment and challenges.

Tutorials: There are helpful tutorials and instructions on how to play. Information is provided in a timely manner, with appropriate level of detail.

View Control Mapping: You can view a map of controls during play. This clearly displays the mappings of actions to buttons/keys/mouse/keyboard without having to leave the game. This includes games that always display buttons to press during play.

Assistance For Progressing

These features aid your progress through the game offering different ways of maintaining your progression.

Bank Progress With Frequent Checkpoints: If you fail you can retry that level or aspect of the game without losing a lot of progress (less than 5 minutes). This is often provided via Frequent Checkpoints combined with restarting without losing time, equipment or score.

Save Progress Anytime: The game automatically saves progress or you can save any time. This doesn’t mean you never lose progress, but it does mean you can stop whenever you want (without having to get to a save point) without losing progress.

Similar Games With More Accessibility Features for Getting Started

If you want to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, but it doesn't offer the Getting Started accessibility features you require, these similar games extend the Getting Started accessibility:

• Submerged Hidden Depths (9 Getting Started Features)
• Immortals Fenyx Rising (8 Getting Started Features)
• Go Vacation (8 Getting Started Features)
• Tchia (7 Getting Started Features)

Navigation

We've documented 7 accessibility features for Navigation in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild which deal with how the game provides guidance and assistance to navigate its worlds. These are only for games that have traversal and exploration in 2D and 3D spaces.

Clarity

Clear Mission Objectives: The game provides clear, structured missions with directional guidance and advice on which can be attempted next. This also indicates (ideally on maps where they are provided) which missions can't be attempted because you do not have the appropriate items yet.

Head-Up Display

Head-Up Display Navigation: Indication of where to go next with overlaid arrows, minimaps and waypoint markers. This supplements in-game visual and audible cues with additional guidance about where you are and where you need to go.

Adjust Head-Up Display: Resize and adjust the content of the head-up display. This enables it to be made more visible. It can also enable the removal of too much information that can be distracting or confusing.

Game Map: View a map of the game world during play, with the landscape, points of interest and missions highlighted throughout the entire game. This enables the orientation of the player and the world, confirming a direction of movement and the location of destinations or points of exploration.

Menu Navigation

Menu Audio Cues: Navigating menus provide an audio cue for each selection.

Digital Menu Navigation: Menu choices with Gamepad can be made without using an analogue stick to guide a cursor to a selection. For example, using D-Pad, buttons or the Stick to change menu selection in a single action.

Menus Don't Wrap: Menus don't wrap and stop the cursor at the bottom of the list if you press down. Or menus do wrap but make it clear that you are back at the top of the list with sound or narration.

Audio

We've documented 1 accessibility feature for Audio in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild which deals with how you can adjust the audio of the game and whether audio cues compensate for aspects of the game that are hard to see.

Play Without Hearing

Play Without Hearing: No audio cues are necessary to play the game well.

Similar Games With More Accessibility Features for Audio

If you want to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild, but it doesn't offer the Audio accessibility features you require, these similar games extend the Audio accessibility:

• Lego Fortnite (4 Audio Features)
• Smalland (4 Audio Features)
• Immortals Fenyx Rising (4 Audio Features)
• Paradise Marsh (3 Audio Features)