I would like to enjoy Zelda BOTW but …

Sounds like it's not the game for you. Overcoming environmental challenges is kind of the name of the game, and if the baseline "cold bad but fire hot" thing isn't something you enjoy then I'm not sure you would enjoy trying to navigate any of the main story areas in the game.

Pretty sure they put a bunch of hot pepper plants around the entrances to that region as the hint.

If you can't work out how to make a cold person warm, maybe this isn't the game for you, I didn't even realise that was a puzzle or challenge tbh

The exploration and physics IS the game. You kinda do the objectives along the way.

It really helps that you follow the road though and turning off the UI. I dont think this is for you though of you got frustrated by the weather. The old man teaches you to cook and make a fire.

Sounds like you're still at the Great plateau which is just the tutorial area of the game basically. You can watch a few videos on YouTube to find the easy way to get past it. The weapon breaking mechanic is really annoying at first but eventually you'll realize that they did it so that you can enjoy all the variety of weapons in the game without having a hundred things in your stash. Exploration is one of the most enjoyable parts of this game so try to look around for the old man and he will help you.

I'm going to be real- I enjoyed BotW and TotK enough, but I don't see them as traditional Zelda games and it actually pisses me off that Aonuma has come out and said we will NEVER get a traditional 3D Zelda ever again. So the success of the open-world Zeldas is the nail in the coffin for the games we actually grew up loving. The death of the open-world fad can't come soon enough, most of these games are nothing special.

I wanted to like this game but the story was just so uninteresting to me that I had to put it down. I know not everyone is like me but as someone who adored the stories in oot and majoras mask, I couldn't do it man.

The weapon breaking is annoying, even in TotK still. It‘d be more bearable if you could at least repair broken stuff at a blacksmith or something, but as it is, I’m scared to lose my cool stuff to a buncha gremlins. So I‘m hoarding the good stuff and cope with poor throw-away weapons…

It‘s a bit like the „elixiers“ situation in old FF games: Game‘s over and you have 22 unused elixiers you saved for when you really need them.

The game literally tells you you can use warm clothing or elixirs to keep warm. There's even another method they don't tell you, equipping an elemental weapon can change your temperature. Just have a flame blade on your back and you can survive running around in snow.

Learning where to buy clothes and how to make elixirs is not hard. Just talk to people near where you're struggling.

Weapon durability is only a problem if you don't exercise any discretion in which weapon you use for which situation. If you use your best weapon on weak enemies, you won't have it later when you face stronger ones. So... don't.

I personally modded the game to remove weapon and shield durability, and it was unreal how much more enjoyable this made BOTW to me.

I got farther than you, but felt all of those things didn't really improve or feel as fun. The weapon breaking is annoying. I feel like it's too quick.

Edit: I eventually gave up after the 'first' boss (I know you can do them any order, but water blight is generally considered the easier one to do first).

A few tips for you:

Cook food. Lots of it. You can sell cooked food (especially meats e.g. rare meats) for crazy amounts of rupees. Use rupees to buy cold weather clothing from the various towns in game, then use that whenever you feel cold (same goes for hot weather, you'll need hot weather clothes).

Don't try to go way off into the mountains right to start. Find the shrines close to you, mark them on your map, and go there. Do the same for towns. You can then fast travel via the map around the game world, making things way easier.

Finally, when it comes to weapons, you really can't get attached to any of them. The Master Sword is the only one that doesn't break, but it will lose energy and take time to recharge before it can be used again. It's just part of the game mechanics. While annoying, it does force you to plan out your attacks and consider your resource usage.

It did finally click for me, but it took well over a year. Someone told me to play for a couple weeks with no goals, and that finally made it happen. I didn't put it down for another hundred hours.

I bought BotW right when it came out and I'm still not all that much further than you. I've come back to it multiple times, but just can't get into it. I had trouble with the freezing area too. Took me an hour before I finally stumbled across a solution. I've gotten a bit further than you, and it just keeps getting more and more over complicated as you go.

I just don't think the game is fun, personally. But I also don't think Skyrim is fun. I'm not really into most open world games. I wish they would make us a new one more in the style of Ocarina and Twilight Princess, but it seems like we're in the minority

I grew up with ALttP, OoT, LA and MM mostly. I feel that BotW and TotK are OK games but not what I personally want from a Zelda game.

BotW and TotK are a very different type of game from OoT. As others have pointed out, there are a lot of environmental mechanics to learn as well as how to find and use different types of weapons due to weapon durability. It's a much more open ended game than OoT where exploration is much more of a focus, whereas OoT is more story focused and has a more specific order to do things (which isn't 100% set in stone, as the whole Spirit vs Shadow Temple debate proves) that's still more straightforward than the newer games. I like both types of games, especially for both OoT and BotW/TotK being gaming masterpieces for their time, and the three of them are my top 3 Zelda games for sure. But if you don't like one or more of them that's perfectly fine. Not every game will appeal to everyone.

It's a very mid game.

Large area of nothingness. Nothing really to explore or a reason too. Combat is strait up discouraged. The quality of the story falls off a cliff right quick. The Zora zone has the best story and NPCs.

Crafting clearly should have been a thing, it at least a real use for gems. And cooking was under done in so many ways. The only thing you need to know how to make was the baked durian fruit.

It's honestly a victim of the trend that existed of every game needing to be as big as possible and be open world.

And hopefully you don't like archery, because Nintendo figured you'd need to really work to buy arrows so you can launch a few. They made sure to patch out an exploit (on a single player game) that made it easy to get arrows.

The game could have and should have been better. I know people will get mad, because people lost their minds when it came out and people dared to not give it a perfect score... but this game really felt like a tech demo... to see what they could do and see what was popular. I forced myself to beat it, haven't touched it since.

It's not a bad game, but not great either.

Sometimes games (even critically acclaimed ones) just aren't your thing and that's ok. Just need to do what works for you.

I've had similar experiences with some of my favourite franchises - I think the new Final Fantasy game is terrible for example even though others love it and I've enjoyed the others from 1-15.

A large part of the progression in BOTW (and to a lesser extent, its sequel) is getting the means to permanently or at least easily deal with the various types of environmental challenges, to the point that the ones that were tough to surmount in the early game aren't even really an inconvenience in the end.

These are, in no particular order:

• Areas that are cold.
• Areas that are hot.
• Areas that are on fire.
• Eventually finding stronger weapons that don't break as fast.
• Getting better armor, and improving it, to make combat easier.
• Getting a horse to make traveling to new areas easier.
• Improving your maximum health and more importantly, max stamina so you can climb more stuff and glide longer distances.
• Getting a movement technique that allows you to yeet yourself to the top of objects.

FWIW, if you stick to the "intended" path on the Great Plateau (the starting area of the game, where you seem to be) the old man will explicitly tell you what to do to deal with the cold. There are actually multiple solutions for getting up there without freezing your nads off.

::: spoiler spoiler The most straightforward one is to use one of the cooking pots, either the one at the old man's cabin or the one outside of the cave where you first meet him, to cook up some spicy peppers and eat them. This gives you a time limited buff that makes you immune to the cold. You can also carry a lit torch, which keeps you warm as long as you're holding it. You can also find the recipes for two special cold resistance dishes in the old man's cabin if you read his diary on the table, and if you bring him both of these at the top of the mountain he'll give you the Warm Doublet, a piece of armor that permanently protects you from cold. But anything you cook a spicy pepper into will give you a cold resistance buff. :::

Not sure if this helps you, but there are some really good mods that reduce or eliminate some of the irritating gimmicks in the game. I played with a double weapon durability mod that makes the game feel way better.

The weapons breaking and stuff is whatever, eventually you just tune it out. They shower you with new stuff constantly, so the idea is to use a little of everything. No comment on whether that’s a good or bad thing, it’s probably the most divisive part of the game. Just is what it is.

You do get permanent loot in the form of clothing (which can have interesting special properties) and powers and such

As others said, the game is all about exploration and overcoming the environment as much as it is about hacking and slashing monsters. The weapons break, but they are plentiful and there is a wide variety to try put anyway with different strengths and properties. It encourages you to explore more (both to find cool weapons and to grow your storage capacity), use different types of attacks and prioritize weapons for different types of enemies. But, if all else fails, even a stick off a tree can be used in a pinch. And there are environmental weapons and sheikh slate utilities that never run out.

The dialog with characters is often helpful for learning some of the mechanics. If you are required to do something, guaranteed there is some character, book, or dungeon to teach you how to do it early on. On the plateau, the old man is your guy. Talk to him for tips. Even better for those who enjoy exploration, though, there are usually multiple ways to overcome the same challenges and they let you discover some of those on your own instead of hand holding.

If you want a helpful tip on this specific problem, read on. If not, stop here.

The cold environment will make you freeze to death, but there are multiple ways to overcome this. Warm clothes. Campfires. Even eating spicy food. There are even some fun more subtle ways I'll let you discover for yourself. You can also always just say "screw it" and just run in naked if you want and keep pounding apples to refill your hearts if that's your jam. But the simplest way to handle the cold on the mountain at the start is to get a torch and light it on fire at a campfire (you can find a fire where you first saw the old man coming down from the shrine of resurrection, or in bokoblin camps, if you dont yet know how to make one yourself). Unlike other weapons that catch fire, a torch will never burn up or go out until you stow it away. 'Cause it's a torch. That's what torches do. The mechanics of the game often hold up to common sense like that. So just carry a lit torch and it's heat will keep you warm enough to get to the top. Just don't stow it until you're back at the bottom. Job done.

I never got into BOTW, either. But TOTK is so much better in every way, I got into that just fine.

BOTW is just so bare-bones and not engaging enough.

Shun!!!

While I find it a shame that modern Zelda games have left the formula behind, I do believe the old Zelda formula has gotten stale and that the franchise was ready for an overhaul. Before BotW the main line console games in the series have pretty much the same progression mechanics since LttP, the only exception is Majora’s Mask. Twilight Princess and Skyward sword were boring for me because they were way too predictable. I do like the openness of the new Zelda games but I get what your saying the games feel too much like a playground instead of an immersive fantasy game.