Regenerative Play and the Experience of the Sublime: Breath of the Wild
Abstract
In this article, Gerald Farca and co-authors consider The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) through an ecological lens, arguing that its players “enter a natural space uncontaminated by civilization”. Central to Breath of the Wild is a juxtaposition between a primal, natural evil (‘Calamity Ganon’) and the sublimity of the nature of Hyrule, the game’s fictional kingdom. The experience of this universe, Farca et al. believe, revitalizes the player’s admiration of nature while alerting them to the (contemporary) dangers threatening environments and ecologies at large. This (re)awakening of the player’s sense of ecology through gameplay is coined ‘regenerative play’.
(Abstract written by David ten Cate)
Farca, Gerald, Alexander Lehner, and Victor Navarro-Remesal. 2020. "Regenerative Play and the Experience of the Sublime: Breath of the Wild." In Mythopoeic Narrative in The Legend of Zelda, edited by Anthony G. Cirilla and Vincent E. Rone, 205-222. New York and London: Routledge.