Official Zelda: Breath of the Wild guide released for free

Of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom just a few months ago Nintendo – rarely known for giving things away – made a manual for its predecessor, Breath of the Wildavailable for free.

The Breath of the Wild Explorer’s Guidepreviously only available in a print edition as part of the game’s Explorer’s Edition downloadable as a pdf of the Zelda website in its entirety – well, almost.

Pages 73 to 84 of this 100-page volume are missing for some reason. At first I thought maybe this was to avoid spoilers, but the missing chapters – about things like horses and great fairy fountains – don’t seem particularly spoilery. Some later chapters are marked with a spoiler warning and do make it into the PDF. So the missing pages are probably just a typo.

The Explorer’s Guide is more of a comprehensive guide than a full guide, with a walkthrough for the first Great Plateau section, as well as more general introductions to some concepts and features of the wider game, such as cooking and hunting hidden Koroks.

For new players Breath of the Wild who don’t want to go completely blind – especially younger ones – it’s a handy little handbook. For seasoned players, browsing through the guide will no doubt have you itching to explore Hyrule again, plus there are a few nice pieces of art to look at. I had never seen the beautiful illustration opposite the content page, which shows the very young Link of the former Legend of Zelda game with pride Breath of the Wild‘s Link the master sword.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be released on May 12th, and frankly it can’t come soon enough.