The legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

• Author: Soave, Robby
• Position: VIDEO GAME - Brief article - Product/service evaluation

Even the most inventive video games feel tedious at times, just because of the nature of the beast: Go left until the screen fades to black, jump over that obstacle, complete this puzzle, return a magical artifact to its owner, mash the A button, repeat. A video game is a series of commands made by a computer and dutifully inputted by a player. The best games succeed only because they disguise this fact better than others.

Perhaps that's why The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the long-awaited new installment of Nintendo's most acclaimed franchise, feels so revolutionary: The game yields control of the iconic protagonist, the elven action-hero Link, and sets him free (with little instruction or fanfare) in a place called Hyrule.

To say that Hyrule is vast would be quite the understatement. Indeed, this is the game's most impressive achievement, and what distinguishes it from earlier entries: The world is larger than that of almost any other video game ever designed. The...