Breath of the Wild also uses some short, memorable themes, but it has wide areas that have been called musically “simplistic” or “quiet and sparse.” 10 Although the music of Breath of the Wild is largely based on location and characters, many uninhabited areas of Hyrule are accompanied only with solo piano or nature sounds such as birds or wind. Other games in the Legend of Zelda series use memorable, looping themes in virtually every area of the game. Player reactions resulted in various blog titles, ranging from “Does Breath of the Wild Have Memorable Music?” 7 to “The Genius Behind Breath of the Wild’s Music” 8 and even “In Defense of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s Soundtrack.” 9 These titles point toward a different musical aesthetic for the game, allegedly in need of “defense,” that uses less obvious thematic material than some players clearly expected. 6 Breath of the Wild’s musical palette is significantly different from earlier games, a change noted in many user reviews and opinion pieces about the game. Until Breath of the Wild, the main games of the series maintained a predictable format in both gameplay and music, with some variation based on technological capabilities and the platform on which it was released.
I propose that these musical contrasts interact directly with a neo-narrative gameplay organization and serve to give players clues to their in-game surroundings, linking locations, characters, and events through a completely player-driven discourse. 5 Rather than following transformational, modular, or thematic links, I focus on stylistic and topical contrasts in the game’s music, with minimal reference to other games in the series. Jason Brame provides an intertextual consideration of the construction of several recurring themes from various games in the series. Breath of the Wild does not incorporate a musical instrument into Link’s arsenal, and area boundaries are less well-defined than in earlier games, both physically and musically. 4 Again, these musical relationships are mediated by the titular in-game instrument of the ocarina, which players can use to warp to various locations in the game. 3 Likewise Steven Reale uses transformational theory to describe the connections among various thematic areas that players might traverse in Ocarina of Time, and generates a map of the possibilities for musical relationships.
Elizabeth Medina-Gray’s discussion of modular combinations in The Wind Waker points out important effects on player experience when the in-game instrument of a harp interacts with location-specific music. Earlier scholarship on music within the Legend of Zelda series has been linked to features omitted from the latest game in the franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo, 2017).
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