After receiving the Sheikah Slate, you exit a cave that is known as Shrine of Resurrection. You will meet a stranger who gives you some hints but no direction. When you are roaming around the Great Plateau, there is a voice giving you instructions to the next place to be. By activating your Sheikah Slate, you will find a blank map with a dot, telling you where to go next. You should follow the main story quest for the first hour, because it leads you to activate several important elements that make the game more enjoyable, although you can ignore the quests and explore the world. The game offers no tutorial at the start of the game, but Link may receive hints and tips along the way from other characters.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has a beautiful world where you can go from one region to the next seamlessly. Link can walk all the way, climb to the highest point and glide down, or journey the world on horseback. You can also fast travel from shrine-to-shrine, or shrine- to- tower to save time. You can teleport out from a dangerous situation to somewhere safe, such as when high-level monsters surround you and you need to get away quickly. Aside from the main quest, Link can perform as many or as little side-quests to gain rupees or special items. Some quest involves treasure hunting, others require Link to solve a puzzle. Using the Sheikah Slate, you can toggle between main quest and side quests. When you choose a quest, your map will have a marker for the next location you have to go to.

There are 76 side quests, not including the Korok's hide and seek, where the reward is Korok seeds to increase inventory space. To trigger the side quests, you have to talk to certain characters in the game. Some side quests only activate after you completed the main quest, such as freeing a divine beast. There is no expiry time line to the quests, as long as you complete them before defeating Calamity Ganon.

Aside from side quests, there are 3 labyrinths in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild world. Each labyrinth holds treasures and has a shrine inside. For the bravest, the game offers Eventide Island, whereupon arriving Link is stripped off his weapons and shields, leaving him with only his Sheikah Slate, and he has to work his way into activating the shrine on the island.

You can find random rupees by lifting rocks, breaking urns or shooting Blupees (little glowing blue rabbits), some treasure chests have rupees. Rupees come in six different colours with different values: green (1 point), blue (5 points), red (20 points), purple (50 points), silver (100 points), and gold is (300 points). You can use rupees to buy armour, weapons, ingredients to craft elixirs, and food for health. Rupees are also important to complete certain quests. For armour upgrades, find the Great Fairy Fountains and make rupee donation to revive the Great Fairy.

Eating helps you regain health, while some foods help you regain stamina. Cooking increases the amount of health you regain. You can cook dishes that give you a boost in health, stamina, defence or attack. There are 10 buffs (additional boost) you can have in your dishes. Some buffs like cold or hot resistance are helpful if you lack the correct armour to explore a part of the map. If you do not have the buffs or the correct armour for protection, you will lose health until you die.

Link can attack, block, jump, crouch, throw weapon and shoot arrows, the buttons depending on which console. When blocking, if you time it correctly, Link can parry attacks when you press the action or take button. Parrying You can switch weapons, shields and rune on the go. Once you catch a horse and register it at a stable, Link can whistle for his horse. The horse will come if it can hear Link's whistle. While some battles are non-optional, you can hide from smaller enemies by staying out of sight. However, fighting monsters will drop weapons. Every blood moon, the monsters regenerate. The more monsters you fight, the more different they become, but at the same time, they will also drop better weapons and shields.

The tilt function is useful for precision aiming, but is paramount in motion- control shrine puzzles, as you need to tilt the controller to move parts of the maze. You can move the camera around Link, or activate the Sheikah slate to lock on special spots on the map. During a fight, you may need to be familiar with the controls, as some monsters are quick and powerful enough to kill you with a strike.

After Link wakes up from the Shrine of Resurrection, a voice and a stranger will guide him to find four different runes from four different shrines. The runes are Stasis (stopping time of an object for a few seconds), remote bomb, magnesis (magnetic rune that allows Link to lift steel items), and Cryonis (freezing water into ice cubes). Get the four runes as quickly as possible, because they are essential in helping you solve the Shrine puzzles.

At the start of the game, Link has 3 hearts and a stamina wheel. You can gain more heart containers and stamina vessels by trading spirit orbs at the Goddess Statues. Link can also trade heart containers and stamina vessels for rupees at Hateno by talking to the Horned Statue. Falling off high places, not having enough stamina while swimming, can kill you in the game. You can also injure Link if you stand too close to the remote bombs when you detonate them. Fortunately, Link revives at the last place safe spot he died at. For example, if Link drowned, he will revive near where he drowned.

If you want to experience everything that the game has to offer, the game might take around 100 hours or so. Focusing on the main story along will need around 30 hours to complete. Most people enjoy the open world of Hyrule and will take the time exploring every corner of the map. There are 120 shrines in the game, but you do not need to complete everyone to beat Calamity Ganon. But to get the Master Sword, you need 13 heart containers, so you will still need to complete 40 to 50 shrines to have enough heart and stamina to beat the game.