Breath of the Wild - Our Lives as a Tutorial
[Contains minor spoilers!]
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is considered by many as one of the best open-world video games ever developed. I recently borrowed my friend Stephen’s copy of the game and finished the main campaign a couple of weeks ago.
Let me be straight, Breath of the Wild is well worth the time you spend on it!
As you play, you are quickly and immersively transported into a vast, rich, imaginative world. The game blends story, combat, puzzles, history, cooking and much more into a wonderfully enjoyable experience.
One of the most interesting features of this game is that no two players ever progress through it in the same way. The story has been designed to allow individual players to interact with the world in whatever way best fits their personality.
To illustrate this, at one point near the beginning of my play-through, I mentioned to Stephen that I had stumbled upon an island that suddenly removed everything I had collected up until that point. Surprised, Stephen responded that he hadn't discovered that island until very late in his play through.
Later, once I had finished the game, we discussed at length the logic behind our play styles. I spent the early game trying to reach every area I could as fast as possible, with the intention of revisiting them more thoroughly later in the game. Stephen, on the other hand, chose to spend much more time comprehensively exploring each area, before eventually moving on to the next when there was nothing more to find.
This open-endedness, while perfect if you enter the game naturally, would become a problem if you were to pick the game up and to try and play it from the middle. After jumping into an existing save file, you would quickly find yourself totally overwhelmed.
Actually, I experienced this for myself a couple of years ago. My younger brother Peter had been playing Breath of the Wild for some time, and he offered to let me have a go. After ten minutes I had encountered death so many times that I simply gave up. I could not figure out how to progress past an enemy that I now know is one of the easiest in the game (a group of three Red Bokoblins for anyone who has played it!).
The reason for this difficulty is that if you want to survive in the wider world of Hyrule, you must progressively develop the necessary skills. In other words, you must be introduced to the game at a manageable pace in order to play well.
It’s standard for games to explain what you’re intended to do through a tutorial at the beginning. However, in Breath of the Wild you are simply launched out into the world, and expected to pay attention to what’s around you. And then, over time you naturally figure out what you’re meant to be doing.
Now, you're not entirely abandoned with no indication as to what you should do next. The game developers help you on your way by confining you to a relatively small, safe part of the map to begin with.
As you run around this part of the map, you begin to—quite literally—pick things up. You talk to people. You cut things down. You check out huts and climb towers. You run from enemies, and then come back to them when you find something that makes you think you're now ready to challenge them.
After playing the game for some time, you return to the starting area and laugh to yourself as you realise that you once found it so difficult and confusing. But then you also realise that it was in this area you learned all the skills that you are now using as you make your way through the more difficult areas of the world.
This introductory section of the game is vital to allowing each player to learn how to play the game in sync with their own personality. And, as I reflect on the 'choose your own style' gameplay in Breath of the Wild, I see an interesting analogy to the development of our lives as Christians.
I have come to see the introductory part of Breath of the Wild as something akin to our lives during this age between Jesus’ first and second coming.
We, like the game’s main character, were born into this world with very little natural explanation as to what we had been put here for or how we should live our lives. But, then as we progress though life, as we learn from those we talk to, as we consult books, as we experience difficulties that we run from and then return at a later point when we are stronger and think we are now ready to face them, as we explore the reality around us and learn the consequences of both good and bad actions, we are being taught in much the same way as you learn to play Breath of the Wild.
Rather than giving us a comprehensive tutorial manual with explanations about everything we are meant to do in our lives, we are given hints and pointers from God’s word about the kind of things that he intends from his people. He recommends we try developing certain character traits and encourages us to prioritise cultivating a relationship with him, for if we do, we will find that we end up living in sync with reality.
During our present lives, God shows us continual patience, grace and love by allowing us to approach our lives as we best see fit, based upon our current level of experience. He even allows us to make mistakes, to choose the less efficient path, and to (for a time) outright disregard what he has told us about certain actions.
Why? Well, because he wants us to learn how to really deal with these things, to see the built-in consequences for ourselves and to develop eternal character along the way.
So, the next time you find yourself wondering, ‘Why does God launch us into this world with so little direct guidance about how I should live my life in these specific circumstances?’, it might be helpful for you to think to yourself, ‘Well, maybe it’s because this world is simply the tutorial!’
Our lives have been designed by God to produce people who, once they have placed their faith in him, are then granted the ability to develop character that will forever be linked with his purposes for this world and his eternal kingdom.
Just like each player learns to cope with what they will encounter in the wider world of Hyrule during the ‘tutorial’ phase of Breath of the Wild and they do so in sync with their individual personalities, so too are each of us learning unique skills during this ‘tutorial’ phase of our lives which will prepare us for ‘playing out’ the next phase of our lives in sync with God’s eternal purposes.
What God has set before us is so much more than this phase of our world could ever offer. He intends to make us co-heirs of this universe alongside his Son, Jesus the Messiah. And, he intends to use the individual personalities we have developed during this life, to give us unique roles—especially suited for each of us—in his future kingdom.
But, this phase of our lives is still both necessary and highly important, so we shouldn’t allow ourselves to tread it casually. If we do not work to prepare character for the next phase of our lives now, we will not be ready to manifest the qualities that God desires from us. God will not magically generate character within us, we must learn it… and it is in this present world that he intends us to learn it!
Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ… [and then] God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:6–8, 11).
Let us be thankful, then, for the opportunity God has granted us to develop naturally during this 'tutorial phase', and let our preparations now increase our hope for the future world where we will put these skills to use in ways beyond we have ever imagined.
