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One item or ability can change exploration when it creates routes that were previously impossible—or gives you a new way to move through places you could already reach. Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Metroid Dread, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom show three distinct versions of that idea: gliding across terrain, unlocking routes through a connected map, and moving through overhead obstacles.
What makes an item change exploration?
The key question is not whether an item is powerful in combat. It is whether it changes the places you can reach or the routes you can take. A new tool might open a blocked passage, make a return visit to an earlier area worthwhile, or give you a different way to cross a landscape.
These games illustrate different forms of that change. In Breath of the Wild, the paraglider adds a way to travel through Hyrule. In Metroid Dread, acquired abilities help open doors and clear obstacles, prompting players to revisit parts of its connected map. In Tears of the Kingdom, Ascend enables movement through solid objects overhead.
Breath of the Wild: the paraglider turns height into a route
Nintendo describes the paraglider as a way for Link to travel through Hyrule. Its effect is easiest to understand as a change in traversal: from a high point, Link can glide across space rather than follow only the ground route. Nintendo’s Explorer’s Guide also describes creative uses, including gliding from a mountaintop toward a horse.
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The paraglider is not the game’s only means of travel. Nintendo also lists horseback riding, rafts, and shield surfing among the ways to get around. Its importance is that it adds a distinct option to a larger traversal system, making elevation useful for reaching or crossing places in a different way. Nintendo’s Breath of the Wild feature page describes these travel options and the game’s broader exploration.
Metroid Dread: new abilities make old areas worth revisiting
Metroid Dread shows how an ability can change exploration without turning the game into an open-world landscape. New abilities can let Samus pass through doors or destroy obstacles, revealing routes through a connected map. Nintendo’s development team explains the loop in Metroid Dread Report Vol. 3: “Picking up new items and weapons along the way lets you expand the areas you can visit, allowing you to explore new destinations and discover alternate routes.”
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That means progress is not limited to moving forward into an unfamiliar area. After acquiring an ability, a previously blocked door or destructible obstacle elsewhere may become a lead to follow. Nintendo’s Metroid Dread tips advise checking the map for obstacles that the new ability can overcome, including in areas already visited.
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Tears of the Kingdom: Ascend adds a vertical route
In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Ascend is an ability rather than a conventional inventory item. Nintendo describes it as letting Link pass through solid objects above him, adding a new dimension to exploration. Where gliding changes travel across open space, Ascend changes how Link can move through overhead terrain.
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Nintendo introduced the ability in its Tears of the Kingdom release feature. It is a useful comparison because it shows that exploration-changing tools need not be objects held in an inventory: an ability can alter the routes a player can take, too.
How to spot an exploration-changing tool
When a game gives you a new item or ability, look for the kind of access it changes. These questions help distinguish a true exploration shift from an upgrade that mainly affects combat or convenience:
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- Does it open a blocked route? Look for doors, barriers, or destructible obstacles you could not pass before, as in Metroid Dread.
- Does it create a new way to travel? A tool such as the Breath of the Wild paraglider can turn a high point into a launch point for crossing terrain.
- Does it change vertical access? Tears of the Kingdom’s Ascend makes overhead terrain part of the route puzzle.
- Does the map help you plan a return? In Metroid Dread, Nintendo recommends checking for marked obstacles that a newly acquired ability can overcome.
For a traversal item, the change may be immediate: you can move through the landscape in a new way. For an ability-gated route, the payoff may come later, when you recognize an obstacle in an earlier area. Both patterns make the acquired tool matter to exploration rather than only to a character’s stats.
Exploration is more than collecting items
Nintendo’s Breath of the Wild feature page lists more than 100 Shrines of Trials and over 180 weapons. Those figures describe the scale of particular game features; they do not measure how much players explore or show that one kind of content drives exploration. For the question of how a tool changes a journey, the more useful distinction is what it lets Link or Samus do: glide across terrain, pass an obstacle, or reach a route above.
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