This is my daily routine. I wake up, grab my phone, and while still in bed, request the pictures I’ll need for my articles like this one later on in the day. When I start working in earnest a little later on in the morning, I outline my articles on my phone from the couch. I move to my office once that’s done and do some work from there. In the afternoon, I take a 30 minute walk, and often stop halfway through to write 250 words from a bench at the local university or in an armchair at the library. When I get back from the walk, I might finish an article while sitting on my porch steps. The long and short of it is that I don’t tend to work from one place for more than an hour or two. This is also basically the way I play The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
I have no daily routine in Tears of the Kingdom. I just do what I feel like doing. I might spend several hours in the Depths, mining for Zonaite. Maybe I spend some time on my house over by Tarrey Town, or chase down all the quests in Hateno Village. I could turn on my Shrine Sensor and spend some time hunting all the hidden puzzle palaces. Or maybe I’m in a dungeon-y mood and cross one of those off. Or maybe I focus on the main story, and look for all the Geoglyphs. Or maybe I want to get better at building and tool around with Ultrahand. Tears of the Kingdom offers so much to do that it’s easy to wander from piece to piece, playing a different game for a few hours before moving on to one of the others TOTK contains in its multitudes.
I’ve always been this way, and have always liked open-world games because of it. In college, I would get up to go to the bathroom at least once in each class. Not because I always needed to, but because I had a hard time sitting still for that long. Pre-pandemic when I worked from the library more often, I left my gaming laptop unattended a reckless amount so that I could get up and look at the books between tasks.
Open-world games play into this restlessness. Sick of doing assassinations? Go sail a ship or work on your homestead or get in a foot race with a random guy across the rooftops of Boston. People talk about open-world fatigue, and I’ve only ever felt that applied to the open-world games where it feels like you’re doing the same task wherever you go. I enjoyed Dead Island 2, but I was happy it was as short as it was because slicing and dicing zombies alone can only sustain a game for so long.
But, when the activities are varied, it keeps things exciting and fresh. Sometimes you just need to do something else for a little while. Sure there’s the cognitive dissonance of knowing that the world-ending plot is waiting on you to stop collecting Korok seeds. But, that’s okay. Ganon will still be there when you’re ready.