Cooking in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

 Master Sword, Master Chef

With the Nintendo Switch being one week old today, I wanted to talk about the game that has been keeping my Switch busy the most, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. There are so many elements of this game that I really enjoy, from the combat, to the exploration, to the shrines, but the real standout is cooking. It is a relatively small feature, but one that I have really enjoyed. This is because cooking plays out much like a puzzle itself.

If you're in a hurry, a fire arrow will instantly cook the meat

Hunting down meat or fish isn’t that hard in Breath of the Wild; actually this is the easiest part of preparing a meal. You’ll find rams, bulls, birds, and fish all over the place and one good arrow or bomb is all it takes to scoop them up. Things become immeasurably more tricky when looking for fruits and vegetables with the desired stat boost. See, each animal and plant has a special property that, when cooked, gives Link a power-up. Some make him resistant to heat, others raise his attack or defense, and there are many more buffs to acquire. Scavenging becomes key and I find myself picking up every single plant, fruit, and mushroom scattered around the world, just in case I might need them. Collecting the ingredients is only part of the fun though, as the actual cooking proves to be just as entertaining.

Cooking pots are scattered all around Hyrule

Link doesn’t have a cookbook. He doesn’t have a sous chef to help him out. All he has is a cooking pot and his wits. In order to make a good meal, you need to combine various ingredients as you see fit and hope things turn out well. You might get a fantastic meal that restores your hearts as well as buffs your attack, or maybe you put one wrong ingredient into the mix and you don’t get raised stats. Cooking becomes a methodical process, you don’t want to waste a valuable fish by negating its stat buffs on accident. I really appreciate this element to the gameplay as it keeps things from getting stale, no pun intended. Cooking can be as simple as throwing a piece of meat down on a campfire then eating it at the critical moment during combat. But, suppose you need a bit of a defense boost to take down the guardian you’re facing off against as you battle through a shrine. If you prepared an Armored Carp skewer then maybe the stat boost from the meal will get you through the fight, whereas a simple piece of cooked meat might not. This adds unexpected depth to the gameplay, and provides another variable to combat situations. While the satisfaction of a well prepared meal is great, the highlight of the cooking comes in Link’s animations.

The food screen is easily accessible on the go 

Link has a different animation
for each type of food

When eating a piece of food from your inventory, naturally it refills your hearts and applies any boosts the meal might provide, but it also plays an animation of Link eating his food. He is always very expressive; whether he is shoveling down the meal by hand, or munching on a skewer of meat. I always watch the animations and do not back out of the menu until it is done. This speaks to the incredible level of detail on display in the game. It would have been very simple to not have animations, and it would have been even simpler to continue the potion method of healing from previous Zelda titles. Cooking did not even need to be added to the game. Aonuma and his team really went above and beyond with the game, not only in the cooking, but in all other aspects of the game. It is this attention to detail and thoughtful design in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that makes the game a masterpiece.