A Celebration of Weapon Degradation
A Celebration of Weapon Degradation
Because it feels good to hit something so hard you break your sword.
Want to feel old? The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild turns 10 next spring!
Want to feel even older? No problem. All you have to do is catch a whiff of the arguments about Breath of the Wild’s weapon system that are still circulating the internet. Yet another rash of debate about its merits sprouted on social media this week, and no matter how much everyone scratches, it still won’t go away and never feels any better.
So let’s apply a little topical lotion to the problem area. A lotion called “good, common sense.”
Weapon degradation is a great and interesting game mechanic. It enriches a game, creates compelling friction, and forces players to be mindful of their actions and long-term strategies. The only real issue with weapon degradation arises when it doesn’t fit the game in question. Just as a core Sonic the Hedgehog high-speed platforming action game doesn’t need a Soulsborne-style parrying system (please, Sega, no), not every game needs weapons that fall apart after you whack a few goons.
Pac-Man races against weapon degradation [© Bandai Namco]
In a way, weapon degradation has been a part of video games since the day Pac-Man gulped down his first Energizer pellet and had godlike powers of consumption... for about five seconds. The spirit of that temporary power-up worked almost exactly like modern weapons degradation: it gave players the ability to overcome their foes, but within limitations. If Pac-Man were to gain permanent ghost-chomping abilities, it would make for a boring game with no threats or challenges. Instead, empowerment becomes a key strategic consideration in the game. You can use energizers as a quick respite, an escape hatch, or as a score multiplier. Do you treat them the same as any other dot in the maze, leave them untouched in the event of a crisis, or attempt to lure the ghosts into the surrounding passages so that you can gobble them all? And how do you deal with the energizers in later stages of a cycle, when they only offer a split second of safety?
Weapons that fall apart should, ideally, present the same consideration. Look back at one of the first games to introduce weapons degradation into the mainstream, The Final Fantasy Legend for Game Boy. (These days, the kids know it as SaGa.) In that game, all weapons have limited utility: swords, guns, whatever. They have x number of charges when you acquire them, and once you’ve used those charges, you no longer have that weapon. In SaGa, though, the fragility of weapons helps balance out the different character races available to players. Human-type characters rely entirely on weapons and armor, and they can easily outclass the other party members thanks to the power and availability of guns and swords. Mutants lean heavily on magic powers, which may have awesome power and can be recharged infinitely, but a mutant can permanently forget a spell at random. And monster-class characters get by on their innate powers, but monsters can only grow by devouring the meat of other monsters and taking on a new form determined by a complex system of factors that may as well be random without the use of a strategy guide. The ephemeral nature of SaGa weapons simply means that every race has both advantages and drawbacks... which is the foundation of involving gameplay.
The hero of The Final Fantasy Legend on the prowl for fresh swords. [© Square Enix]
Sure, most people don’t always want to deal with the stress of those decisions. You don’t play Sonic so that you can engage in precise, reaction-based melee combat; you play Elden Ring. When you want to go fast, that’s when you play Sonic. But even cozy games like Animal Crossing often feature some variant of weapon degradation: Until you acquire Golden versions of tools like butterfly nets and fishing rods, those things will eventually break. How does a net fall to pieces from catching a bee in mid-air? It’s nonsense, of course, but that’s video games. Animal Crossing wants to give you cause to consider your actions and more chores to do, with permanent indestructible tools as your eventual reward for diligent long-term play.
It works the same way in Zelda, too. Because Breath of the Wild offers players almost total freedom to go anywhere in any order, weapons degradation allows you to experience a properly organic freeform experience without the possibility of breaking sequence, acquiring the best weapon in the game, and totally trivializing the rest of the world. You can stumble across some incredible weapons of sheer destructive potential quite early in Link’s adventure, and putting a hard limit on the number of times you can blast a Lynel with a Guardian laser means that you’ll need to come up with a fresh trick the next time you encounter a Lynel. You can’t simply laser-removal the Lynels out of Hyrule like you’re some kind of legendary anti-lion/centaur depilatory.
That’s a big pig. Hope you’ve found a very pointy stick. [©Nintendo]
Link’s unreliable arsenal means that Breath of the Wild’s gameplay doesn’t fall as easily into predictable, repetitive patterns. You usually can’t be sure what weapons you’ll have access to at any given moment. It’s meant to keep you on your toes while minimizing the artificial barriers within the world. This is a game where you can climb every single mountain in the world and swim nearly any distance if you juice up your stamina bar, after all. The classic video game barriers of a low fence or invisible wall have no place in that world.
There is, of course, the classic question of why the Master Sword is also subject to those limitations. Look, even ancient legendary weapons get worn after a few millennial cycles of sealing evil into the Golden Land or whatever. And most people couldn’t stand Fi in Skyward Sword... you’d think they’d take a little more satisfaction in sticking it to her. Or not being able to use her to stick it to enemies. Whatever.
Life is short and unpredictable. Joy can be fleeting. So take pleasure in the transience of a brittle blade and relish the mono no aware of never knowing how you’re gonna take down that next Lynel.