How Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s Powerful Nostalgia Connected Me to My Mother

How the Nintendo Switch game renewed my connection to my late mother.

By Jonathon Dornbush

The first game I ever played was The Legend of Zelda on NES. Well, I wasn’t really playing.

My mom, who passed away in 2009, would play, handing me a second controller while she explored Hyrule. And as I’ve returned to a different, but equally as mysterious version of that world in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I am brought back to those early days of a scrolling, 8-bit Hyrule. One that seemed so filled with danger, but one that, with my mother, we could tackle together.

As I’ve explored more of Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule, which lends itself to its own unique type of multiplayer, I am struck by how similarly the adventures unfold, full of mystery and agency that makes the experience feel so tailor-made to me. And the further I dive into its secrets, the more I wonder what my mom would have thought of Breath of the Wild.

No Zelda journey every quite captured my mom’s attention like the original game. I think that initial openness and promise of the unknown hooked her. Hyrule is an absolute mystery at first, and at a time when something as robust as IGN's own interactive Breath of the Wild map would seem like a fantasy, discoveries felt extremely personal.

The map became her game bible.

And even in the internet age, Breath of the Wild’s mysteries evoke just as intimate impression. Sure, I could hop online and uncover every secret of the game’s world, but Hyrule is designed so well that it continually presents little points of intrigue to explore, with such a rewarding loop of discovery that I want the mystery to remain. I want the satisfaction of making these discoveries myself. And my Hyrulian findings have taken on all the more personal meaning because I’ve realized just how alike my gameplay habits are to my mother’s.

My mom kept two folded up pieces of paper in the drawer of her bedside table. One was a cheat sheet about power-ups and the magic whistles of Super Mario Bros. 3. The other, a much more worn and creased page, bore a photocopy of a map of the NES Zelda’s Hyrule. At some point in her many playthroughs of the game, she had made a copy from some manual, and the map became her game bible.

With each new journey through the corners of Hyrule, she’d make addendums to the map. Notes of tough enemies in one corner or a secret heart containers began to fill in the margins of the paper. No matter how many times she played, or how well she learned the map, she always kept it out with her as she played.

I was doing the same thing in Breath of the Wild my mom did in the original Zelda.

It took me a few hours to realize I was doing the same thing in Breath of the Wild my mom once did with the original Legend of Zelda. My first encounter with a Lynel in Breath of the Wild ended in repeated defeat, and so I marked its location with a skull. Two decades ago, I knew to watch out for those “sword shooting” enemies — we didn’t know the name of Lynel’s then —because of my mom’s notes. I stamp every tower or shrine I spot in the distance during my travels, just as my mom noted the entrances to dungeons in her Hyrule. And I initially marked Korok seed locations, until I learned I had 900 to collect, much in the way she would note a secret wall to bomb for an extra heart container.

I'll never get to know what my mother would have thought of Breath of the Wild. After the first game, her interest in the series waned, and my attempts to get her to play The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker — my personal favorite Zelda — were futile. But I think Breath of the Wild may have made her return to Hyrule.

My mom will never have a chance to return, and we will never get to play a Legend of Zelda game together again, but with every stamp I place on my Breath of the Wild map, I’m reminded of the love of gaming my mom instilled in me from a very young age. With every stamp, I get to relive a little of my time with her.

I like to think she’d be proud of my neurotic notetaking.

Jonathon Dornbush is an Associate Editor for IGN who also owes his mom for his love of Crash Bandicoot, SSX Tricky, and Mario Kart. Find him talking about all of these games, and a lot of Kingdom Hearts, on Twitter @jmdornbush.

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