dolphinspired / botw-survival-mode

An alternative to Master Mode for Breath of the Wild

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - "Survival Mode"

Recently, I wanted to replay Breath of the Wild. I wanted to try something challenging, but I was not terribly satisfied with my last playthrough in Master Mode. That mode added some difficulty for the first few hours, but overall it didn't force me to change how I played from Normal Mode. It just consumed more weapon durability. I knew if I started a new playthrough with no restrictions, I would end up doing many things that make the game easier, but kind of take the fun out of it. For example:

• Hearty food simply beats out every other food for healing, and makes encounters a breeze.
• In that same vein, rush to Faron Tower and gain fast travel access to a durian orchard, and virtually unlimited top-tier food.
• You can easily cook ludicrous amounts of food and sell it to have more rupees than you'll ever need.
• Environmental challenges virtually disappear once you get a piece or two of gear to overcome them.
• Weapon durability doesn't matter much when you can simply teleport to Lynel spawns and farm the best gear every Blood Moon.

These are just a few of the game's elements that seem to trivialize its own challenges. And that's fine when you gradually uncover them throughout your journey, but it also waters down the replayability of the game.

So, how can we solve some of these problems holistically, without just saying "can't do X or Y"? That's how the Survival Mode challenge was born.

Intent

This challenge is not intended to be brtually difficult. Instead, this challenge is meant to offer a refreshing twist on BotW's core gameplay. The rules for this mode were made with theme of "survival" and the following priorities in mind:

1. Exercise game mechanics that I've personally underused or neglected in normal gameplay
2. Add a layer of challenge without adding tedium
3. Encourage planning ahead through meaningful choices and consequences

Rules Overview

Here's a quick rundown of the core rules. For edge-cases and optional tweaks to the challenge, read the sections below.

• Normal Mode difficulty
• No fast travel
• No shops
• Limited equipment
  • 4 melee weapons
  • 1 bow
  • 1 shield
  • The Master Sword and Champions' weapons do not count against these limits.
• You cannot change armor out in the wild. You must be at a town, stable, or Great Fairy.
• You cannot take prepared meals with you. You must eat them at the cooking pot.
• You can take grilled food with you.
• You can take a limited number of elixirs with you. One per Great Fairy unlocked.
• You cannot eat or drink during combat.

Equipment

Limited equipment
Your melee weapons, bows, and shields are limited to what Link could "realistically" carry, while also considering that equipment in this game breaks unrealistically fast. This includes: 4 melee weapons, 1 bow, and 1 shield. If you pick up any equipment that puts you over any of these limits, you must drop a weapon ASAP to make room.

There are no restrictions on how many or what types of arrows you can carry.

To avoid some tedious inventory management, the following exceptions are allowed:

• You can pick up extra tools (such as a Woodcutter's Axe, Double Axe, or Iron Sledgehammer) to harvest resources around a town or stable, but you must drop that tool before you leave the area (when the town or stable music stops).
• You can pick up an extra Korok Leaf when you need to travel by raft, but you must drop it as soon as you disembark

Limited armor swapping
You can't carry all your clothes with you all the time, so you can only change out your armor when you're "near a wardrobe". This includes when you're in a town, near a stable, or near a Great Fairy. You're considered within range of any of these places as long as you can hear their respective music playing. You can also change armor while standing outside of Gerudo Town, since changing inside is... well, not advised.

If you get a new piece of armor from a chest, you may immediately equip that piece. Your other piece of armor is magically returned to your wardrobe when it gets swapped out.

Optional Challenge: Limited melee weapon types
In the theme of what Link can "realistically" carry, limit the types of each of these 4 weapons that you can hold

• 2 one-handed weapons (one on each side of your belt)
• 1 two-handed weapon (strapped to your back)
• 1 tool (such as a Iron Sledgehammer, Woodcutter's Axe, or Drillshaft) or ranged weapon (such as a Boomerang or a wand)

I started off with this as part of the core challenge, but there were too many gray areas and it became tedious to justify weapon slots when I picked up new stuff. Does a Boomerang count as a ranged weapon if I only use it in melee range? Can I use my drillshaft for combat, and not just mining? Can I have a 3rd one-handed weapon instead of a two-hander? That said, feel free to try out this rule for a little extra role-playing challenge.

Optional Handicap: Master Mode balancing
This challenge was designed with Normal Mode difficulty in mind, but if you want to try Master Mode, you may consider allowing yourself a few more weapons to account for the drastically increased enemy health. I would recommend doubling the inventory limits: 8 melee weapons, 2 bows, 2 shields. But you may want to play around with these numbers and see what feels right.

Consumables

Meals must be eaten fresh
Any meals prepared at a cooking pot must be eaten before you leave the cooking pot - you can't carry fully-cooked meals with you into the wild. If you're cooking in a town or at a stable, you must eat the meals before you leave the area.

If an NPC gives you a cooked meal, you must eat it immediately.

You can take grilled food with you
While less useful for effects, grilled food is still great for healing and can be made anywhere in the world, provided you can make a fire. Rather than having to set up a fire every time you want a snack, you're simply allowed to carry as much grilled food as you want.

You can take a few elixirs with you, as a treat
Elixirs are kept in sealed containers and can survive a trip into the wild. However, you must learn how to safely transport these glass bottles, and who better to teach you than Her Majesty the Great Fairy? You can carry one elixir per Great Fairy that you've unlocked along your journey, up to a maximum of 4 elixirs.

If you make additional elixirs beyond your capacity, treat them as food - you must drink the additional elixirs before leaving the cooking pot, town, or stable.

If an NPC gives you additional elixirs beyond your carrying capacity, you must drink them immediately, or before leaving the town or stable. You can also drink another elixir to make room for the NPC's gift if you want to keep it.

No eating or drinking in combat
Rather than shoving a five-course meal in your face in the middle of a fight, you'll need to rely on your armor, hearts, and skill to help you survive encounters. You won't have any proper meals to eat, but any grilled food or elixirs must be consumed before you enter a fight or after you disengage.

You're considered "in combat" when any of the following are true:

• Battle music is playing
• An enemy can sense you (there is a ? or ! above their heads)
• An enemy knows where you are is shooting at you, or blowing a horn for reinforcements

Optional Challenge: Korok Elixirs
The limited inventory part of this challenge means that Korok upgrades are entirely useless, so there's no need to collect Korok seeds in normal gameplay. If you want to give the little fellas some use, consider tying elixir capacity to the number of Korok seeds collected, unlocking new elixir slots at 50, 100, 150, and 200 seeds (or double that if you're feeling crazy).

Optional Challenge: Fresh-grilled foods
You could say that grilled foods can also only be eaten fresh, which means you'll have to stop and build a fire anytime you want to restore your health in the wild. While this does add a little more of that "survival" feel, I think it adds more tedium than meaningful challenge, since wood and flint (or fiery weapons) are not exactly in short supply. But feel free to try this rule out and see what you think.

Travel

No fast travel
Absolutely no teleportation to shrines, travel gates, or Divine Beasts is allowed. You will learn to travel by horse and you will love it! Fortunately, your horse can still "fast travel" to you when it's equipped with the Ancient Saddle (DLC required), so you'll want to pick this up as early as possible.

Since Divine Beasts can only be exited or re-boarded via fast travel, you should aim to complete them in one attempt. You're locked in to your Divine Beast attempt as soon as you start the challenge before boarding it (such as the Prince Sidon/Shock Arrow segment before Vah Ruta), since you will be sent straight to the Divine Beast after the challenge. If you get stuck (not enough weapons, food, or buffs to complete), reload a save from before attempting the initial challenge, prepare better, and try again. If you get completely stuck and can't reload, fast travel as little as possible to recover.

Optional Handicap: Travel Medallion only
Once you obtain the Travel Medallion (DLC required), you may use this as your one and only fast-travel point. You're free to move it anywhere in the world throughout your adventure, but you only get this one point. Think of it like a Hearthstone in World of Warcraft.

Optional Handicap: House travel only
In the standard Survial Mode challenge, there's not much reason to purchase your house in Hateno Village. You can store a few pieces of equipment there, but you'll have to travel to one corner of the map to get them. To make this purchase a little more enticing, you can allow yourself to travel to Hateno Village via Myamh Agana Shrine, or to a Travel Medallion gate placed in front of your house, once you purchase the base house for 3,000 rupees.

Shops

No buying from or selling to shops
Since your a wild man who lives off the land, bartering with shops is not allowed in this challenge. This means that you can't buy anything from or sell anything to any shops with one of the two primary "shop interfaces", including:

• Any shops with the browsing interface, where you walk up to an item and a price is shown (such as the shops in Kakariko or Hateno Village)
• Any shops with the menu interface (such as Beedle or any wandering merchants)

If shops are forbidden, then what good are rupees? There are still plenty of places to spend rupees in the world that aren't considered shops by the above rules, including Great Fairies, the house in Hateno Village, and the Gerudo Outfit in Kara Kara Bazaar. You'll be able to put those rupees from chests and quests to good use.

Special rules: Trial of the Sword

• Since weapon durability can be pretty tight on these trials even under normal rules, the limited inventory rule is relaxed a little bit here. It's fine to go over capacity while in a room, just make sure that you drop any extra weapons, bows, or shields before moving on to the next room.
• There are no critters or monster parts in this trial, so it's impossible to make elixirs. To balance this out, you can take food prepared at a cooking pot in place of elixirs, but the inventory limits still apply (one cooked meal per Great Fairy unlocked).