cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/225523

1. It is completely normal to die occasionally while you’re still learning how the game works.

Every new environment, new enemy type, new weather conditions, new miniboss etc. have their own, unique dangers. A “game over” is no reason to feel bad - we’ve all been there once. And sometimes the game simply screws you over, like flattening Link with a rolling boulder out of nowhere - not your fault, no way to prevent it.

Plus, loading screens are short, autosaves are somewhat frequent, and there is no penalty for dying, so just don’t fret about it. Dying isn’t bad.

2. You WILL feel lost or overwhelmed at times.

This version of Hyrule is friggin’ huge and you’re given very little direction. It is ridiculously easy to get sidetracked and lose your way, forget what you were doing in the first place because there is too much new info, or run around in circles while you’re trying to locate something for a quest. It gets better eventually, but at the beginning, it is kind of normal to have that experience.

(Hint: you have a quest log, and selecting a particular quest often makes glowing markers appear on the in-game map, hinting at the place you need to visit or the person you need to talk to in order to advance said quest. The quest descriptions in that log also may help to remember what the actual objective was)

3. There is no timer.

Everything(!) after leaving the tutorial area is entirely optional, can be done in nearly every order you want, or even skipped entirely without a penalty. If you can’t figure out a puzzle, or an enemy is just too damn hard, or you simply don’t want to complete a specific objective, then just leave and do something else.

Even the quests that seem “urgent” simply aren’t urgent. Impa may pester you to go free the Divine Beasts already “before it is too late” or find some memories ASAP, but it simply doesn’t matter whether you do it right now, in 5000 hours, or never - there is no “too late” and nothing bad will happen. The rewards will stay the same no matter how fast you complete stuff. Take your time and don’t rush anything just because an NPC said so.

4. You WILL do a lot of stuff “wrong”

… or overcomplicate things that could have been done a lot easier by other means. We’ve all been there once (and it makes for some funny anecdotes later). The beautiful thing about this game is, that even the “wrong” stuff can work out in the end (and does so surprisingly often)

5. It is literally impossible to permanently fail any quest or objective.

In other games (like for example The Witcher) some quests auto-fail or become inaccessible depending on your choices or actions, but this simply does not happen in BotW. Even if you deliberately piss off questgivers, actively destroy the things you were meant to guard and do everything in your might to utterly and completely fail a quest … you are still allowed to retry an infinite amount of times until you finally succeed. Don’t worry about failing - you can’t.

6. You will never know everything.

There are thousands of neat little secrets hidden in this game, and hundreds of wildly different gameplay mechanics. It is completely normal to not find out and/or understand all of them right away. People might have played the game for thousands of hours and still never made an elixir or tamed a horse or solved all puzzles. Sometimes people even miss one of the stables or villages entirely. Don’t fret about it, as this will give the game a lot of replay value - there is always something new to discover.

7. How to avoid spoilers

If you’re stuck somewhere and need/want spoiler-free hints instead of the blunt, boring solution, make a post about it but clearly mention in the title and text that you only want a HINT instead of the solution. People in this community are usually good at providing subtle yet helptful hints without giving away everything right away.

8. Have fun!

There is legit no right or wrong way to play this game - just have fun. I’ve once spent an entire playthrough just feeding animals with various foodstuff - no quests, no shrines, just tossing carrots at wild bears and boars, so basically there was no actual gameplay progression - and I still had a total blast for a couple dozen hours. You want to cook every dish in the game? Go ahead and become a chef. You’re solely interested in catching and customizing horses? Noone is stopping you! You just want every outfit in the game? Be a fashionista! As long as you have fun, it is the “right way” no matter what exactly you’re doing. ;)