Linear Stories in Nonlinear Games: A Closer Look into the Major Flaw in Tears of the Kingdom’s Story

Telling a linear story in a nonlinear game sounds like an oxymoron. In my opinion, it is. It’s inherently contradictory. Breath of the Wild told a (mostly) nonlinear story in a nonlinear game, which made sense for that game and worked out pretty well for what they were trying to do. Tears of the Kingdom, however, tries to tell a linear story in a game that is decidedly nonlinear. Unfortunately, this leads to the possibility that players could spoil the game for themselves unless they are suuuupper careful and honestly, lucky. In this video, I discuss how the approach to storytelling in Tears of the Kingdom is flawed, in my opinion of course, as well as present alternative solutions that could’ve easily fixed these issues. Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences down below and I hope you enjoy the video!

Video credits:
“The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time - FULL GAME - No Commentary” - SourceSpy91
“Breath of the Wild - Silent Princess Cutscene (Recovered Memory 9)” - Myron Reyes
“The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - MEMORY 13 (17): Final/Secret [SPOILERS]” - King-X
“Link pulls the Master Sword - Breath of the Wild” - Winther Games
“Zelda Music To Relax/Study/Work/Game” - pp3k07
“Malo Mart Theme - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” - GamingThemes

All other footage is from my Tears of the Kingdom playthrough or Nintendo game trailers.

Note: All of The Legend of Zelda music and gameplay clips are ultimately owned by Nintendo, but fall under fair use in this video. I do not own this content.

00:00 - Intro
00:59 - So what happened?
07:54 - How could this have been avoided?
11:46 - Conclusion
12:32 - Outro

[GirlyGamesGood]

Full disclosure, I’m really proud of this video and I’m glad I was able to convey my feelings in what I hope it a clear way. Looking forward to seeing what you guys think in the comments!

[superl]

This video was extremely well made im so surprised to see such a low number of views you totally deserve more! Video essays of any sort are my weakness <3 I really do love the story in concept i just wish the developers were able to accept its linear nature. I think a clash between linearity and non-linearity is a big issue in totk that goes even further than the game's story and is a big problem with the order you explore regions and a little bit dungeons.

(no spoilers long rant about the exploration incoming)

I found the secret thingy you are supposed to find after doing all the dungeons first (saying thingy to avoid spoilers). It was A BLAST flying up to this suspicious sky island and having this huge area with a locked door to explore. I had so little battery power and of course, I couldn't use a balloon since they die quickly so I needed to go into the depths to go mining so i could get enough energy cells to make it all the way up. Eventually though using all my resources i was just able to get up. I realized i needed hearts so i dedicated myself to doing shrines to unlock this mysterious door. It felt so amazing that this game must have all these secret dungeons maybe?? and the fact im creating my adventure by creatively flying up to THIS spot in the early game and dedicating myself to it. Theres no way this was intentional, but if i want to do it this way the game says go for it!! It's only barring me off with how many shrines I've done! What a smart way to give me freedom, but also make sure im experienced enough to take on whatever is behind this door. Once i got the hearts i did the whole thingy and beat the other thingys. It felt so unique and creative to my playthrough that i did things this way and it was so seamless. The same can't be done with the dungeons. If you try to fly up to the water temple (like i did). It was a decently hard (but fun) climb as i had so little power and no zora armor. I had to learn about the fire pine cone trick as well as using recall and bombs and shields and all that. It felt all worth it though. I used all the tools i had in the best ways to make it up just like I did with the last one. The game showed me I arrived at the water temple and did its cool lil animation. I didnt even know this was a "dungeon" till now, I was just trying to explore the sky and this was the most interesting thing i saw. All the enemies were there all the puzzles were there, but i could not do anything and there was no indication that i needed to do some very specific quest first, i simply thought i didnt understand the puzzles. I tried using the hydrant device to move the gears, but that didnt work apparently i needed the "special sage water". Also all of those "tricks" I did to get up there. They may seem simple but for me they weren't. Why? Doesn't the game teach you that? Well a lot of basic new mechanics are taught to you in the hebra region with the rito questline. The game expects you to go there first so much so that it teaches you some of the most important basic mechanics only in that region. When i arrived in hebra and started the rito questline I immediately saw so many tutorials and explanations for things and mechanics I had to learn on my own. It was just so blatantly the place I was supposed to go first for the best experience. ...I did that dungeon last. you ALSO cant unlock the great fairy unless you start the quest in the Hebra region. It's so odd because it's all about exploring stables, but I can only explore them in one specific order. I just wasn't allowed to use that mechanic because I explored the regions in the "wrong order". And do not get me started on auto-build being locked behind a random quest that someone might skip by exploring the depths differently (that someone was me). This game gives you so much freedom and is open-ended (and probably one of my favorite games) but it seems there are some unspoken ground rules the freedom must take place in.

This isn't as related to the rant but i promise it ties in! I want to praise how open-ended some of the boss fights are. Mucktorock is probably my favorite. Every time I fight it I find some new creative way to take it down with the water mechanics. Sometimes ill use a water boomerang, or maybe ill attach a hydrant to my shield and run at him, or maybe ill just shoot water arrows, or maybe ill use sidon with my spear to be fast but inaccurate, or no maybe slow but accurate, hell maybe ill build a robot to beat it for me this time. There are another good few boss fights like this. I think this perfectly shows what im talking about though. With these boss fights you can be so creative with how you fight them, but you still need to go by a few rules. You still need to use water no matter what crazy solution you come up with. This works perfectly (and is preferred) the problem is that in normal gameplay totk doesn't communicate what these rules are and pretends you do not need to follow them if it does. This really doesnt scratch the surface of how the linearity and non-linearity clash but this comment would be A LOT longer than it already is if i went further than just a few examples! Sometimes the systems of this game come together so perfectly for one of the most amazing experiences. However sometimes what you want to do doesnt come together with what was planned and you dont learn till its too late.

[PeskyPlays]

I’ve been out of commission for a few months (like 6 actually lol) but it is SO AWESOME to see how much your channel has grown! Awesome work, love your videos!

[RedBaronFlyer]

Great video; surprised by how few views it has.

Super long comment talking about my similar frustrations with the story (I'm only talking about the dragon tears and the mastersword cutscene):

Without going into spoilers further on in the story in TOTK, I had a similar experience. After completing the sky island tutorial and getting the paraglider after visiting the depths, I made the mistake of taking the long way to the Rito region by heading northeast along the Deku forest to the top of the map and making my way there the long way. My reasoning was that I had played around with that whole area the least in BOTW (it being the last region I visited and having the "cold" theme playing on loop after fully exploring the Gerudo highlands, the previous place I explored, which also had the cold theme playing on loop, didn't help). Plus, the game nudges you there when Purah is talking about how each of the four regions is having issues with stuff.

I'm going to refer to the memory with the number that you're *supposed* to watch them in and not the numbered list that you can see in the cutscene menu. Technically the numbering in the memory cutscene menu for instance, has Zelda landing in Rauru/Sonia/Mineru's time as cutscene 3, with cutscene 2 being when you stumble upon Ganondorf in Hyrule castle.

I saw Memory 1 (Zelda initially landing in Hyrule in the past) first because I saw the Nazca line off in the distance while diving from the great sky islands, so I made sure to swing by and visit it first after completing the tutorial at lookout landing before treking north via the east side of Hyrule Castle.

Then, I saw Memory 3, talking about dragonification. I didn't realize I was already out of order as Memory 3 hypothetically could have taken place right after memory 1 (as Rauru could have immediately brought Zelda over to Mineru once Zelda explained the situation)

WIth this, I headed further north and saw Memory 11, which is right before the big reveal as to what happened to Zelda, as she gets the Master Sword from Link. At this point I put together what had happened as back in the Great Sky Island, the moment you put the broken master sword through the time portal, the light dragon shoots through the clouds.

Then, I saw memory 8. Ineresting decision to have Ganondorf make a troll face while laughing but at that point I had already accepted that the story was pretty much ruined for me. Unironically, troll face Ganondorf raised my spirits a bit, but I threw in the towel for trying enjoying the story.

It's so frustrating because TOTK's story is pretty okay I'd say. I didn't like it was much as BOTW's but the story beats had potential. I'm super disappointed with the story they went for since it's so rare to have a direct sequel, and from interviews, it seems like this is probably going to be the last LoZ game set in the BOTW setting. IMO I think is for the best since TOTK really felt like it was running on fumes in terms of new ideas pretty fast, but it's a shame because I really liked the characters in BOTW and had really hoped they'd be built on in TOTK. The intro area under Hyrule Castle got me so hyped for what the story could have been, just for Zelda to be in the past as a plot device (again), but without BOTW's memories which built her character and the characters around her. I wasn't one of those people thinking Zelda would be a playable character or a companion or whatnot, but I was thinking she'd be an NPC in the game like Purah, for instance.

-

As you said, BOTW's stories through memories worked because, in the grand scheme of things, they are designed to be able to be viewed out of order. After you complete the tutorial you immediately know the most important story beats from the King, and later on, Impa (who you are told to head to right off the bat and have pretty strong gameplay incentive to do so as well):

1. Hyrule assembled a force of champions and divine beasts to fight Ganon.
2. Ganon pulled a sneaky and managed to basically 99.9% win, at some point during the whole thing you (Link) got beat up so bad you had to take a 100 year power nap.
3. Zelda is in the castle barely holding Calamity Ganon back and needs help, but not in a "you need to b-line right to Hyrule castle and help ASAP" kind of way.

In contrast to TOTK, finding Zelda is your main objective and narrative hook, and the game constantly pushes you to try and figure out what happened. ALSO, you can't do the memories in BOTW until you talk to Impa (IIRC), she only adds them to the Sheka Slate after you talk with her and have her tell you what happened in the past.

They used a non-linear way of telling stories (similar to BOTW) while having an extremely linear story with twists and it just doesn't work.

-

I'm so confused as to why they didn't just have it work so that interacting with any glyph would have it play in order. For instance, the third glyph you interact with would play the third memory. It's so weird, you have memory 2 right next to memory 8, you have memory 11 right next to memory 3, you have memory 4 right next to memory 10! I have never seen a story so easy to spoil. I managed to avoid TOTK spoilers for nearly a year just to have the main story beats spoiled in the worst possible manner within like, hour 5 of the game.

The counter points I've heard about this is:

1. It's actually a good thing that you can spoil the story for yourself because player freedom. Which is a similar argument I've heard as to why it's totally okay that you can cheese an overwhelming majority of shrines with rocket shields, recall, and noclip.

2. That there's a room that tells you how to do the memories in order, which while true, is an *INCREDIBLY* stupid way to do that. TOTK, while being more sandboxy than BOTW, also simultaneously wants to keep you moving in the way it wants you to for way longer than it really should. I think it's absurd that you can completely miss autobuild (or heck, even the camera and shrine detector) for 80% of the game with minimal effort. I had honestly thought the Shrine Detector was just full on not in TOTK for the longest time.

-

I have never seen a piece of media where you have to work to actually do the story in order while also having zero acknowledgment for figuring out what happened. You can complete the dragon tears, and there's, like, one NPC (Impa) that will actually acknowledge the reveal. I understand not being able to walk up to random Hyrulian stable hand #18 and telling them about Zelda but for pete sakes you can't even tell the rulers of each region that are leading search effort for Zelda about what happened, nor can you mention it during the four main quests in the regions when you really, really should.

DucksAreYellow had some really good videos talking about the disconnect after completing the memories/mastersword, and does so in a better way than I could ever do, but he goes into spoilers further down the line in TOTK so I'd avoid watching something like that until you complete the game.

Sidenote: I also had the admittedly funny experience of walking into the final fight in BOTW on accident. I have never exited out of a game and closed it so fast.

[RacingSnails]

One of the first memories I found was memory 9, near Lurelin village.

Imagine my absolute bewilderment. 😂😭

[thelastwindwaker]

As soon as I saw the light dragon's hair it was obvious what it was. I figured they wouldn't just randomly add a fourth one of those material farms without a plot reason for it.

For me I was immediately disinterested in the story as soon as I found out it was going to be relegated through memories again. BOTW got away with it because they were just beating it into my head that Zelda is so important. Her happiness, her anger, her sadness. It's all centered around her with nothing else really happening other than preparing for the impending calamity.

It's obvious to me that actual narratives aren't the priority of these games anymore. They're all about the minute-to-minute discoveries you make with your freedom and immersion and whatnot. Aonuma even talked about in a 2014 interview how he wanted the player's experiences to be the "story" in these games. With that in mind I'm honestly surprised these games even HAD stories at all. It just exists as fluff for "epic" trailers at this point.

[KokiriTheory]

Totally late to watching this, but this was such an awesome video!! I also got unintentionally spoiled and it was such a bummer. I got spoiled via the geoglyphs and agree it should’ve played in order! The other big difference for me between BOTW and TOTK was that the memories in BOTW were very much linked to the location you were in which was super cool, but in TOTK the memories usually weren’t tied to the location… all the more reason for them to just play the memories in chronological order 🤦🏻‍♀️

[zipzeolocke]

I think Tears of the kingdom is making many Zelda fan gamers shed tears due to bad game design, unfortunately

[Zeldagamer]

Great video, I totally agree with you

[mr.critikz]

I feel like the dev's tried to give the player too much freedom when it came to how they approached the game. They put early memories near early game POI's which leads to solid progression if you're sort of role playing along with the story, but as you go on, you're gonna do things the way you want to do and perhaps in a way the devs didn't intend. This leads to players doing things like going to visit their favorite late game POI from BOTW and finding out some late game info really early without as much as a warning which is really brutal and kind of hurts the way the player perceives the rest of the story in my opinion.

[minty]

theres so many open world games that give you tons of freedom that still have a great story. Elden ring is so rich in lore despite not really having many cutscenes at all, there are entire channels dedicated to the lore of that game alone and it is clear that those devs cared about the world they were building and they even brought in a seasoned author to help. Witcher 3 also has so much lore and worldbuilding without sacrificing the main story of that game. It not only had a foundation of great worldbuilding but it also had a great story that progressed linearly even though you had freedom to do anything you wanted in the overworld. its a shame that nintendo didnt bring on any professional writers

[EthanBoll]

I feel like it could go either way for me. I know that the linear approach definitely didn’t work as well as it could have. I also feel personally that I like the story in Totk more than botw because the nonlinearity of botw, where every cutscene is just another preparation for battle with the divine beasts over and over didn’t excite me as much as the dramatic and emotional beats that hit in some of the cutscenes in Totk.

I definitely like your idea of the game playing them in the order it designed regardless of which geoglyph you picked up Because it allows them to still build a true arc of scenes that have an underlying order like Totk, but give you the option to find them whenever and avoid the spoilers, like in botw. Best of both worlds.

I also definitely feel like the side quest and side adventure stories in Totk are more fleshed out, with many of the towns having interlocking quests (tarrey town, hateno, lurelin etc.) overall I enjoy both games, as well as the original story progression that made other Zelda games so iconic. You did an amazing job Girly, I’m exciting to see you hopefully enjoy more of the game as it unfolds, and hopefully no more major flaws or spoilers. 😉

[twilightburial]

(no spoilers) i had a similar type of instance in TOTK, where because of my freedom and me utilizing that freedom i had a really unique and significant portion of the game/story entirely skipped and ruined for me without me even realizing any of it. i recently went back and did that part for the first time and it made me really upset that i had the "freedom" to just skip or ruin part of this game, like how is that fun or beneficial for the player? it feels hard to believe that all these things and how they were set up were nintendos best attempt at making another story within this world, plus the 6 years it took them to finish it. its a fun game but a linear story like this cannot fit well within the freedom they still want to grant the player.

[timmy]

Could've been worse - at least you didn't have it spoiled for you by some asshole in a random youtube comment section before the game even released like I did haha.

I do think it might be a little premature to be making a video like this before finishing the game and seeing the whole picture, but honestly, you're not wrong and a lot of others have expressed similar sentiments. The way they chose to tell the story was kind of odd and I agree it would've been better to just show the memories in order regardless of which geoglyph you found first. The Deku Tree also gives up the location of the sword far too easily with no context if you happen to find him early.

One thing I'll mention though - regarding the point you were making earlier in the video about how BotW locked its final memory behind a second quest that only became available once you'd found all the others, well... TotK actually does the same thing. I suppose the difference is that by the time you reach that point in this game, you've already pieced together what's going to happen by that point.

Then again, I suppose if I were to look at it through a more positive lens, knowing the outcome doesn't necessarily diminish the experience of seeing how it all unfolded. BotW's entire structure was built that way, I mean the king tells you a basic overview very early on and the rest of the game is seeing *how* it all happened and filling in the details. Before you even see BotW's final memory you already know Link collapsed while defending Zelda and was taken to the shrine of resurrection, but actually seeing the scene and *how* it all unfolded still makes for an impactful and emotional moment. I think TotK can be viewed as similar in that way - though I had the big reveal spoiled for me in a comment section, and many others (like yourself) found out way too early in the game, it's still part of the experience to see how it all unfolded and have the details/context surrounding it filled in.

[RichardLerwill]

I didn't do them in order and I didn't feel like the story was ruined. Everyone I've seen who plays it comes to the truth at different points and I think thats the beauty of it.