So it’s no surprise that Nintendo has taken Breath of the Wild as an opportunity to play catch-up on things that have become standard in the genre, like crafting and cooking.

But in recent years, other games like The Elder Scrolls and The Witcher have added to the formula far more than Zelda games. Zelda games practically defined what an action RPG was for over two decades. That leaves tons of room for player choice, something we haven’t seen very much of in Zelda games past. Not only that, but the game is apparently so open that, immediately after starting it, you can go directly to confront the final boss, skipping everything else that’s supposed to happen in between. Put another way, Breath of the Wild will be 12 times larger than the previous holder of “largest Zelda game ever” award, Skyward Sword. According to the developers, the sprawling area shown in the demo represents just one percent of the game’s full size. The worlds in previous Zelda games have had varying degrees of openness, but they’ve never come close to the size and freedom offered by Breath of the Wild. To tide us over until we can get our hands on Breath of the Wild in 2017, let’s look at the ways it breaks with the series’ traditions. With this new one, Nintendo is making what might be its most ambitious game ever.

If you want to play a traditional Zelda game, you have your pick of over a dozen titles released across all Nintendo platforms over the past 30 years. I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is good news for fans. This isn’t the Zelda you grew up playing. What’s clear to longtime fans is that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild represents a major departure for the series in a number of important ways. Nintendo pulled the lid off the game at E3 by streaming hours of footage to anyone who wanted to take a look at how it’s shaping up. One of the biggest upcoming Wii U and Nintendo Switch games is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

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