The opening moments of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are iconic. Link awakens, steps out onto the sun-drenched cliffs of the Great Plateau, and is presented with a vast, silent world. The player’s instinct is to run, to explore, but the game gently but firmly guides them to a singular, critical objective: complete the four Shrines scattered across this introductory area. These Shrines, more than simple dungeons, constitute a perfectly crafted tutorial zone that teaches the game’s core philosophy without a single explicit instruction. They are the foundational pillars upon which the entire hundred-hour adventure is built.
The Great Plateau itself is a microcosm of Hyrule. It features forests, rivers, ruins, snowy mountains, and hostile plains, all contained within a manageable space. The Old Man, the area’s enigmatic guide, directs Link to seek the Shrines to acquire the Spirit Orbs needed to obtain the Paraglider—the key to leaving the Plateau. This setup creates a clear, motivating goal. Each Shrines is visually marked by a beam of orange light, providing a distant beacon. The journey to each one is a lesson in itself, teaching the player about climate effects, stealth, foraging, and combat. However, the true genius lies inside the Shrines, each designed to impart mastery over one of the four core Runes of the Sheikah Slate.
The Magnesis Trial, often the first encountered, is a lesson in perception. The Rune allows Link to magnetically manipulate metal objects. The initial chamber presents a simple puzzle: move a metal bridge to cross a gap. This immediately establishes the tool’s function. Subsequent challenges, however, ask the player to look at the environment differently. Metal plates become makeshift bridges or shields; hidden metal cubes buried in rubble become keys to new pathways. This Shrines teaches that the world is not a static backdrop but a dynamic toolkit. It rewires the player’s mindset, encouraging them to scan every environment for metallic objects that can be interacted with, a skill that remains essential throughout Hyrule.
The Cryonis Trial, typically found in the cold river area, focuses on creative problem-solving and traversal. The Rune creates pillars of ice from bodies of water. Initially, it serves as a simple means to create stepping stones across water. But the Shrines quickly escalates the complexity. Players must create ice blocks to stop waterwheels, raise platforms to access higher ledges, or even shatter their own creations to clear obstacles. It emphasizes the non-linear nature of solutions—often, multiple ice pillar placements can solve the same puzzle. This Shrines ingrains the idea that water is not a barrier but a canvas for creation, a concept that transforms how players approach Hyrule’s many lakes, rivers, and waterfalls.
The Stasis Trial, located near the eastern forest, is a profound lesson in physics, timing, and kinetic energy. The Stasis Rune can freeze an object in time, allowing Link to build up kinetic force on it before the effect ends. The early puzzles involve freezing a rotating gear to pass by or stopping a massive hammer swing. The climax usually involves striking a large metal ball repeatedly while it is frozen, sending it rocketing across the room to smash a barrier. This Shrines teaches cause, effect, and anticipation. It also introduces a combat application, as players learn they can freeze enemies or incoming projectiles. The Stasis Trial demonstrates that the world operates on a consistent, manipulable set of physical rules, empowering the player to experiment with momentum and force.
The Bomb Trial, frequently the last attempted on the snowy slopes, introduces controlled chaos. Here, the player receives both round and square remote bombs. The puzzles involve blasting through cracked walls, triggering weight switches from a distance, and using the bombs’ different rolling properties. This Shrines is about spatial awareness and risk management. It teaches the player to gauge blast radii, to use bombs for mining ore in the overworld, and to employ them strategically in combat. The dual nature of the bombs—one for rolling, one for placement—highlights the game’s commitment to providing multiple tools for any given task, encouraging adaptability.
Upon completing all four Shrines and returning to the Temple of Time, the player exchanges the Spirit Orbs for a heart container or stamina vessel. They receive the Paraglider. Yet, the true reward is not the item, but the synthesized education. The player now possesses a complete, intuitive understanding of their core abilities. They know that a metal chest seen across a ravine can be retrieved with Magnesis; that a river can be crossed with Cryonis; that a boulder blocking a path can be launched with Stasis; that a cluster of enemies can be dispersed with a well-placed Bomb. The Great Plateau’s walls are no longer physical barriers but the boundaries of a classroom. The moment Link leaps off the Plateau and deploys the Paraglider, he is not just descending into Hyrule—he is soaring into a sandbox of possibilities, fully equipped with the language needed to interact with it.
The legacy of the Great Plateau Shrines is their seamless, empowering tutorial design. They reject lengthy text boxes and forced instructions in favor of curated experiential learning. Each Shrines is a self-contained puzzle box that teaches a mechanic in isolation before setting the player free to combine them in the complex, systemic playground of the open world. This approach fosters a profound sense of discovery and competence. When players later encounter far more intricate environmental puzzles in the vast landscapes, they are not following a scripted solution but applying a foundational vocabulary learned in those first, quiet chambers. The Shrines of the Great Plateau are, therefore, not merely the first challenges in Breath of the Wild; they are the keystone that makes the game’s celebrated freedom both possible and deeply meaningful. They teach the player to breathe in this new wild world, one rune at a time.
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