Game Informer goes hands-on with a full dungeon fromThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildand notices some key changes when compared with previousZeldagames.
WithThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildjust a few weeks away, Nintendo is starting to pull back the curtain to let gamers know what to expect from the highly-anticipated open world game. That’s one of the reasons the Big N spoke toGame Informerfor its latest cover story and now, the publication has published some new details aboutThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s dungeons online.
By now Nintendo has shown off plenty ofBreath of the Wild’s numerous shrines during its various Treehouse live streams - these shrines are more akin to mini-dungeons with just a few puzzles to solve in each one. Game Informer says it had the opportunity to play through a more traditionalZeldadungeonas part of its cover story, which included a much larger series of interconnected rooms and a boss fight.
The exact location or story behind the dungeon is still a secret for now, but there are some new details for fans to be aware of. It’s been clear for a while that Nintendo set out to make adifferent kind ofZeldathis time around, and that apparently includes the game’s dungeons, which seem to do away with many longtime series conventions.
Most notable is that the dungeon played during the demo was not designed around discovering a new item. In the dungeons of past games, Link has often run into a roadblock that impeded his progress until he found a new item, like the Hookshot for example. This new item was then almost always used to help expose the final boss’s weak spot, but apparently the dungeon on display did not offer up a new item.
Other differences discovered in theBreath of the Wilddungeon when compared with past games include:
That’s a lot of information to digest and it’s likely fans are only going to get more from Nintendo asBreath of the Wild’s release dateapproaches, alongside thelaunch of the Nintendo Switch. While the lack of a new item or compass in each dungeon might turn off some traditionalists, this could be a pretty exciting change of pace for the franchise. It certainly sounds like Aonuma was given free reign to come up with something truly unique and different for thisZeldagame and we can’t wait to find out more.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildlaunches August 17, 2025, onNintendo Switch and Wii U.
