Latest news with #BreathOfTheWild
The Verge
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Breath of the Wild's Switch 2 enhancements have me exploring Hyrule all over again
Last night, I stayed up way too late playing through the Great Plateau section of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, and I'm falling in love with the game all over again. The opening moments of Breath of the Wild are iconic. The wide shot of Hyrule you see after leaving that first cave is breathtaking, showing you the world of possibilities ahead. Solving the puzzles on the Great Plateau requires some real creativity and experimentation, especially to survive the colder parts of the area. All of that magic is still there with the Switch 2 version of the game, which you can get as a $9.99 upgrade if you already own the Switch version or as a standalone $69.99 purchase, but it all plays better. As far as I could tell, the frame rate stayed at a steady 60fps no matter where I went in my initial explorations, which makes the game feel much smoother and more responsive. That was nice for my skirmishes with the Great Plateau's Bokoblins; they're basic enemies, but I liked sparring with them at the faster frame rate all the same. The game also has a higher resolution on Switch 2, and while the graphics aren't improved too dramatically from the original game, I thought the Switch 2 version looked great on my 4K TV. (I did notice things like grass or rocks popping in as I got close to them, though.) Best of all, the load times are much faster, which could be the improvement that really makes the Switch 2 version worth it. On the original Switch, the load times weren't too bad, but they would regularly force you to pause as you waited for the next area to load. On the Switch 2, it felt like I was loading into shrines or a fast-travel point with only a brief delay, and over the course of an entire playthrough, those shorter loads will add up. In my initial testing, the Zelda Notes companion app's navigation tool (found within the Nintendo Switch app) also seems like it could be a big time-saver. The feature functions like a GPS for all sorts of things you can discover, including shrines, towers, enemies, and even Korok seeds. I opened it up, picked a Korok seed that was apparently near me, and the app guided me toward it by showing my position on the map in the app and telling me what direction to go. It even nudged me to climb upward, which was helpful because I happened to pick the Korok that's found on the highest spire of the Temple of Time. The navigation feature arguably takes away from the self-guided exploration that makes Breath of the Wild so special. Since it's an optional feature, though, I don't think it takes away from the experience too much — especially since it requires booting up an entirely separate app on a separate device, so you have to do some work to get it up and running. If you're playing through the game on the Switch 2 for the first time, I'd recommend that you don't use it. But if you want to find every single Korok seed, it could be a lifesaver. What surprised me most with my first couple hours with the Switch 2 version of Breath of the Wild was that I was getting into its captivating loop all over again. Even though I've played through the game multiple times on the original Switch, I still found myself darting around the Great Plateau to take on random camps of baddies, diving into a pond to get a Korok that I knew was hidden there, and marking shrines and towers on my map. On the Switch 2, it's all much more refined, making it an excellent way to play one of Nintendo's best games.
CNET
5 days ago
- Business
- CNET
Everything You Need to Know About Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Games
Gamers rejoice! The long-awaited follow-up to the Nintendo Switch, the Nintendo Switch 2, is here. Nintendo released the new console on June 5, alongside Mario Kart World, the next installment in the popular racing franchise, alongside the new console. The Switch 2 is backwards compatible, so you'll be able to play your Switch games — albeit with some compatibility issues — and Nintendo is providing free upgrades to some other original Switch games to improve playability on the latest console. Nintendo is also releasing a handful of upgraded Nintendo Switch games that can be played on the new console, called Nintendo Switch 2 Editions. Here are all the games Nintendo said will get Switch 2 Editions: Now Playing: Switch 2 Launch Games | Obvious Skill Issue 5 05:56 While those games are set to be upgraded for the new console, only Switch 2 Editions of Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom and Civilization 7 are available now. Switch 2 Editions of the other games will be available later this year. Nintendo wrote online that the Switch 2 Edition of a game can include visual improvements, new features or additional game modes compared with their original Switch counterparts. For instance, the Breath of the Wild Switch 2 Edition offers faster load times, an additional save slot for you or another person, as well as higher definition and smoother visuals. The Switch 2 versions of games are available in both digital and physical copies. You can buy and preorder the Switch 2 Editions of some games at retailers like Target and Walmart. The Switch 2 Editions will cost up to $80. If you already own the Switch version of one of those games, you can buy an upgrade pack to play the Switch 2 Edition in the My Nintendo Store or the Nintendo eShop on your console. You can also purchase digital codes for upgrade packs at retailers, which you can then redeem on your console. In an interview with IGN, Nintendo America's vice president of product and player experience Bill Trinen said some upgrade packs will cost $10. "For somebody who has bought Tears of the Kingdom or Breath of the Wild, the upgrade packs for those are $9.99," Trinen told IGN. "If you happen to be a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack member, both of the Zelda upgrade packs are inclusive within that membership." For more on the Nintendo Switch 2, here's what we know about the console and Switch 2 Editions of games. You can also check out what to know about games like Mario Kart World and The Duskbloods.
Digital Trends
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
The end of the Nintendo Switch era closes a long chapter in my own life
My first memory of the Nintendo Switch is about as mundane as it gets. I don't recall unboxing it, powering it on for the first time, or bringing it to a rooftop party. Instead, I see myself sitting in my ex's living room on a random weekday. As they cooked, I sat quietly as I climbed atop of my first Divine Beast in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I don't remember this because it was a triumphant achievement that showed off what kind of spectacle my new next-gen console could pull off; I remember it because I was very depressed. Recommended Videos While Nintendo was starting a meteoric rise in March 2017, I was hurtling towards the ground faster than Link with a depleted stamina wheel. I had just come off a stressful election year marred by a wave of beloved celebrity deaths. The world felt like it was coming to an end, an alarmist thought that especially felt true as a new administration wreaked havoc on the United States come March. My personal life wasn't going much better. My ambitions were non-existent and I was locked into a day job career that I never wanted. I was becoming more despondent by the day and I could sense that a breakup was imminent. It would be months until I'd go to therapy for the first time in my life, so all of this pent up anxiety that I tried to keep quiet bled into my Joy-cons as I gripped onto them for dear life. I find myself reflecting on this small moment now as the Nintendo Switch 2's June 5 release date looms. For the first time in eight years, I'll unbox a brand new Nintendo console on that day. Its internal storage will be empty. My Samus avatar won't greet me when I boot it up because I won't have logged into my account yet. The tablet will be a blank canvas that I will fill over the next eight years of my life one download at a time. And though it's an arbitrary moment in time born from cold boardroom meetings and clinical earnings calls, I see the start of a new console era as an opportunity to reinvent myself too. If I look back through my life, I can map my development by the video game hardware I've owned. My Sega Genesis takes me back to the early days of my childhood spent playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with my brother before he got wrapped up in his own teenage angst. The GameCube conjures countless memories of the formative high school years that I spent bonding with my close friends over rounds of Super Smash Bros. Melee. I'm back in college when I think about the Wii, navigating physicality for the first time in both my relationships at the time and the video games I was playing. Each console, each handheld tells countless stories about where I have been and how I have evolved alongside the tech that followed me there. That now weighs on me as I prepare to power down my Switch for what could be the final time in just a few weeks. My instinct has been to process that moment with a retrospective about the system, reflecting on the games that made it one of the best video game consoles of all time. Instead, I've found myself more and more focused on mapping my own generation. Who was I during this eight-year Switch era? What will be the snapshot I see when I think back to Super Mario Odyssey or Fire Emblem: Three Houses? The answer doesn't feel as simple as it once was when I was younger and console generations were shorter. I began that journey at rock bottom, hopeless and floundering amid societal collapse. The Switch would follow me through multiple breakups, several jobs, three apartments, the death of a close friend, and unprecedented moments in history that chipped away at my mental health. Just as the Switch is inseparable from a pandemic that defined its power, I can't untangle those eight years from the waves of pain and uncertainty that washed over me between new game releases. If the Nintendo Switch 2 had launched in 2020, I'd be able to tell you with relative certainty that the Switch represented the worst years of my life. But eight years is a very long time, much longer than these hardware time capsules usually hang around. A period that long is bound to bring arcs, both for the console and its players. Nintendo kept steady while riding a wave of momentum shifts due to a changing landscape around it, but my ride was different. While I started at the bottom, playing Breath of the Wild as an escape from the world around me, I began to rise. I started therapy and got a better job months after the Switch released, just when everything was at its most hopeless. I made a more serious career pivot in 2020, landing a dream job that put me on the path to a career in video game writing I'd always thought was unobtainable. I eventually landed here at Digital Trends and made a name for myself writing work that I'm proud of. I stumbled my way through relationships only to land into something more secure and healthy. I hit a peak alongside the Switch in 2023, the same year it would release the double whammy of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder. When I look into my Switch's display now, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the black screen, I see an era of rebuilding. These were eight years that threw the challenges of adulthood at me and dared me to overcome them. It felt impossible in the moment, but I'm still here. Maybe I'm just looking too closely to find patterns, but I see a direct parallel to that story and Nintendo's own. Like me, Nintendo was listless in its Wii U era. It had no idea where to go after the Wii's success, just as I didn't know how to turn the creative fulfillment of my college days into something sustainable in adulthood. It too was at rock bottom when the Switch released, in desperate need of a second act. Nintendo got one, and so did I. If this is the start of a new era for Nintendo, who's to say it can't be another beginning for myself as well? But our lives don't stay the same for very long. Ahead of the Switch 2's launch, I find myself in a similar low to the one I was in back in 2017. History has repeated itself as a mentally taxing election year has yielded the same president that made my life hell for the Switch's first four years on the market. The career I built for myself is one strong wind away from tilting over as games media endures an intense period of contraction, one that destroyed the website that gave me the dream job that catapulted me to success in 2020. Some days, I'm every bit as distant and despondent as I was back then. When I turn on my Switch 2 for the first time in a few weeks, it will feel cyclical in a way that's bound to leave me overlooking just how much I've accomplished between launches. But I'm trying to approach it with a bit more hope this time. If this is the start of a new era for Nintendo, who's to say it can't be another beginning for myself as well? I know that I'm capable of climbing out of despair, even as the biggest forces in the world fight against me. There will be change. I will undoubtedly pack my things into 50+ boxes again in between playing levels of the latest Mario game. I will fall out of touch with some friends and gain some new ones. Perhaps I'll miss Nintendo's big Switch 3 reveal in 2033 because I'll be too busy nursing an injured pigeon during my shift at a bird rehabilitation center. Maybe the Switch 3 won't happen at all as Nintendo moves on to its next bright idea after a disappointing generation that calls for a creative overhaul. I can't possibly know who I will be the moment I power my Switch 2 down for the last time. All I know is that Mario will probably be there at the finish line, looking not one day older than he does now while I greet him with a grayer beard. I'll try not to be jealous of his eternal youth — some Italians just age better than others. Instead, I'll embrace those differences, as grumpy as I no doubt will be in my middle age, as every change will be a sign that I've made it through another leg of an ongoing relay race. I'll be ready to pass the controller to whichever version of me is up next when I get there.
CNET
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Zelda Notes On Switch 2 Will Breathe New Life Into Tears of the Kingdom
The Switch 2 Nintendo Direct livestream on April 2 was jam-packed with hardware information, exclusive game reveals and third-party collaborations -- including information about Switch 2 upgrades for the Legend of Zelda games that essentially bookended the original Switch console's lifespan: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. With all of the hype surrounding these games, I couldn't blame you if you missed what seemed like a new minor feature buried within the Nintendo Switch App. Zelda Notes, as it's called, is compatible with the Switch 2 editions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, helping players navigate Hyrule more effectively, view their in-game achievements and access save data on the fly. Watch this: Switch 2 Detailed: What You Need to Know 07:18 Perhaps most importantly, Zelda Notes will allow the Tears of the Kingdom community to build a library of Ultrahand builds that anyone can import into their game. The Switch 2 edition upgrades for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are free so long as you have a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership. Otherwise, you'll have to shell out some money to take advantage of Zelda Notes when the Switch 2 launches on June 5. Here's why this new Nintendo Switch App feature is such a big deal. Making Ultrahand easy for everyone From simple cars to complex flying machines, you'll be able to access any Ultrahand build you want with a single tap. Nintendo/Screenshot by CNET Forget the sky islands and the underground Depths: Ultrahand is the key selling point of Tears of the Kingdom. The Switch's Legend of Zelda games are about tackling problems creatively and giving the player complete agency over handling tricky situations. The Ultrahand ability is the Platonic ideal of player freedom. As long as you possess the proper building blocks, you can Frankenstein them together into whatever abominable tool you please. That doesn't mean Ultrahand has ever been easy or intuitive to use, though. And a lot of people just aren't imaginative or dextrous enough to engineer the massive mech suits, flying machines or dragons that go viral on Reddit. I know I'm not. The Zelda Notes app ensures we no longer have to live vicariously through these skilled builders. Now, they can share their Ultrahand builds with a QR code and other players can import them directly into their game. While the feature seems like a way to jot down some notes or view some stats on first glance, it's really the ultimate distribution of player freedom. Your average Tears of the Kingdom player will soon be able to open the Autobuild Sharing tab of Zelda Notes to play with brand-new vehicles and contraptions very soon -- the philosophy of this new app is very LittleBigPlanet-esque. Item sharing, daily bonuses and other odds and ends The voice memories feature will add much-appreciated lore to the Switch's mainline Zelda games. Nintendo/Screenshot by CNET Speaking of QR codes, the Zelda Notes app tries to promote a sense of community in another way as well. Players are able to create QR codes that share items like food, weapons and crafting parts when scanned. You're able to make deposits in a Zelda Notes deposit box for other players to claim when they're needed. A new photo mode makes it easier for players to share their favorite Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom vistas, as well as any wacky moments they encounter in-game. QR codes for item and autobuild sharing can be stamped on these pictures as well. Voice memories will expand upon the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom story, providing new contextual dialogue from key characters as you explore important locations throughout Hyrule. The daily bonus spins a wheel that turns on a 24-hour boost for your save file. You can unlock improved meals, weapon repairs, increased energy cell regeneration or health recovery times and more. Zelda Notes also keeps track of your compatible scanned amiibo figures, and will enable you to start using the amiibo twice in one day once you've scanned it for five separate daily bonuses. All of these bonuses and extra features will be available for the Switch 2 editions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom when they're released on June 5.
