It’s no secret that the world loves The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild right now. Nintendo promised an open world, beautiful scenery, and rich experiences, and boy, they delivered. They also promised it would be as bug free as possible. Did they deliver there?
Players and media have praised Breath of the Wild’s high quality, experiencing little to no bugs. Most are surprised there aren’t more technical issues with the world, considering all the various layers and interactions the game is built with. I’d tend to agree, but players have still noticed some annoying glitches.
Some bugs have been discovered on accident, like the below video where a horse gets stuck with his butt in the ground for a few seconds.
The below tweet shows a glitch where Link can walk on the bottom of riverbeds if an enemy knocks him back into it. Players have even succeeded in lighting fires down there.
Uhhhhh, so, I found a glitch. pic.twitter.com/DsPf5G6RjK
— Swiffy✨ (@Swiffy22) March 19, 2017
While some bugs are happened upon, some result from testing the game’s limits. One player decided to leave his horse on the fast travel pad of a shrine and subsequently fast travel to that shrine. The game loaded Link inside the horse, and no amount of button mashing could free him. This one essentially softlocks the game, and you have to restart the software to fix it. Check it out in the below video.
Another horse-related glitch allows Link to walk through walls. If you back your horse up against a wall, jump off the horse, save while Link’s in the air, and then load that save, Link should be standing behind the horse inside the wall. This works with most walls and cliffsides, even Hyrule Castle. Tread carefully.
In my personal experience with the game, I’ve come across probably two bugs more than once. The first is the most frustrating: interactive objects in the world resetting to their original positions.
Early on in the game, I was arranging some metal boxes to be able to reach some treasure chests in the middle of a bog. I got the boxes in place, went to get the metal board to use as a bridge, came back, and the boxes were gone. When I turned around, I saw they were back where they started. A similar situation occurred in a different area of the game later.
The other glitch I’ve noticed is animals running into a wall for several seconds. Their heads and sometimes parts of their bodies go into the wall/cliff/hill/whatever, but their legs are still running, and they’re not going anywhere. That lasts for maybe 10 seconds, and they disappear. I’ve seen this happen numerous times with frogs and lizards, and a couple times with a deer.
While the second bug doesn’t hinder game progress, noticeable glitches like that really take me out of the immersing experience that is Breath of the Wild, if just for 10 seconds.
None of the reported glitches are anywhere near other open world games like Skyrim and Fallout, but it’s still both interesting and frustrating dealing with bugs on any level. Although, the game is so rich in experiences that I can’t say they come close to ruining the game for me.
Have you noticed any glitches in Breath of the Wild that throw you off? Let us know in the comments!
