# *Zelda* Stole *Fortnite*'s Best Mechanic – A Video Essay [Zelda Stole Fortnite's Best Mechanic – A Video Essay](https://youtu.be/kc2l_9Fdpek) <div class=iframe-container> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/kc2l_9Fdpek?si=KdwbluXQWkiSxOSK" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> Turns out, I like making these video essays. As you can tell by the run time, this one is *much* shorter than my first one—[[My Journey to Becoming a Map Maker – A Video Essay|My Journey to Becoming a Map Maker]]. This was intentional. I made a bunch of creative decisions to test and push myself with this particular video. I should have more to say in a Behind the Scenes post, which should also be much shorter than [[Behind the Scenes of My First Video Essay – My Journey to Becoming a Map Maker|the last one]]. Check out the [[Zelda Stole Fortnite's Best Mechanic Credits|credits]], should you so desire, along with the [soundtrack](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxCxW3Sbhy5ZrUAMvZBY67HVL15BDlXNL). Thank you for watching and reading. I hope you enjoy. # Zelda Stole Fortnite's Best Mechanic Script >[!warning] Super Light Mechanical Spoiler Warning >- *The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom* Last December, I played *Fortnite* for [[All I Wanted for Christmas were some V-Bucks|the first time]]. I know, I know. It was during my annual trip to see *the boys* and watch The Game Awards aka The Keighley's. This particular trip happened to line up with Epic's introduction of the Rocket League Racing, Music Festival, and Lego survival modes. They were all hyped and I was sucked into finally trying one of the world's biggest games. I was hooked, surely and swiftly. Thanks to the power of cross-play, we were scattered throughout the tiny apartment playing on a PC, two Switches, and a PS5. It reminded me of my *Halo 2* LAN party days. It wasn’t long until I was—unironically—uttering the phrase “where we droppin’ boys?” And just how amazing is that drop? Skydiving out of the Battle Bus (after thanking the bus driver, of course) down to a chaotic island that changes up every few months is one of *Fortnite*'s best mechanics. You might not think it, but the drop is a lot more than just falling down to the island. The "Where we droppin'?" mechanic is made up of three key parts; 1. The Rush. - As soon as you jump out of the bus, you can dive bomb straight down at exhilarating speed. Seeing other opponents glide alongside you gets the blood pumping as you race to touch down first, scavenge supplies, and, uh, not die first. 2. The Scope. - From the skies, you take in the totality of the island. From the Battle Bus' path, you look at the map and land mass below. With the map changing in some way each season, there is a fresh sense of discovery as you drop over and over. 3. The Agency. - *You* pick where to land. The spawn location is not predetermined. You have the agency to pick what you believe is the optimal (or sweatiest) landing spot. Will you land in an isolated location and slink around for supplies or land right in the most tense battle arena and go for immediate glory? All of this is conveyed in a singular mechanic that takes, I don't know, maybe 30 seconds—per match. It is a well designed and tight mechanic that helps reinforce the addictive feedback loop that is a Victory Royale. Really, “where we droppin?” is an age old question. As a species, we have a history and fascination of exploring the phenomenon "what goes up, must come down"; and if it falls down fast, that's even cooler. So, of course, game designers would gravitate toward bringing this particular flight of fancy into our hands through a controller. Us gamers have been dropping from the sky for a long time. There's an undeniable hit of dopamine when we climb the mountain and glide our way down. Or soar through the night sky, ready to protect the city. Or grapple, glide, and explode our way to destabilizing a dictator. The list goes on and on. I think I got hooked on falling with the *Assassin's Creed* series' Leaps of Faith. I mean, come on, diving off the highest tower into a pile of hay is a quintessential game mechanic. Such a perfect little dopamine hit that makes you want to climb more towers, way more than just being able to fill out a map ever could. But *Fornite* has all of these beat because of the combination of the rush, scale, and agency in a consistent and repeatable high flying mechanic. I think a part of that is due to the live-service, multiplayer nature of the game. There's an inherent pursuit of re-playability and positive feedback, more so than any single player game. That is, until *Tears of the Kingdom* stole the mechanic. I just started *Tears of the Kingdom* for the very first time a few months ago. It came out right when we moved and I just did *not* have the time to play. And since I am off social media and vigorously trained YouTube to not show me *Tears*-related videos, I had no idea how players were going to go from land to sky—I had no clue there was an entire underground world! It's really cool stuff. Now, *Zelda* isn't new to a skydive mechanic. *Skyward Sword*, the precursor and father of *Breath of the Wild* and *Tears of the Kingdom*, gave players dominion over the skies first. But we were limited to dropping onto tiny, tiny islands or falling down into specific holes in the clouds and selecting which location to land at from a list. It wasn't a seamless world. It was masked by clouds and loading screens. The scope and agency weren't there. In *Tears of the Kingdom*, from the very first jump off the sky island, it ***is*** the *Fortnite* dive. You get all three components: The sheer rush for falling down; The scope of Hyrule and all the quests that surely lie below and; The Agency to go anywhere and follow your curiosity. And then you get it all *again* when you enter the Depths! But how does *Zelda* keep you engaged with and in pursuit of the drop? How does it prompt you to ask "Where we droppin' Link?" With its own feedback loop and mechanics that all pour back into getting you airborne and falling. First up we have two of the abilities—Recall and Ascend. Ascension is the easiest and most direct. It's purpose is to get you on top of buildings and mountains. It's a mesmerizing, video game-y mechanic that always hits me as the solution to my problem like a cartoon anvil, "duh! Ascend!" Recall, on the other (ultra)hand, ties into to getting you skyward less directly. Recall allows you to temporarily reverse the flow of time on an object. All around the world, you might spot rock falling from the sky. Climb on top and "recall" the rock to ride it like an elevator back into the sky. These falling rocks act as a natural elevator that politely interrupts your exploration to ask "do you want to drop again?" Abilities aren't the only way back into the skies though. There are far more instrumental, structural means to get airborne. I'm talking Skyview Towers baby. Think the tower's from *Assassin's Creed*, but instead of jumping down into a pile of hay, you are *launched* skyward to scan the region and then asked *the* glorious question once more. These air cushion launch pads blow Ubi-towers out of the water because the reward is a pure delight *and* an über satisfying mechanic that facilitates exploration, discovery, and spontaneity. Just like towers, chasms also litter the landscape with gloom bubbling up to the surface; their goopy glow in stark contrast with the landscape. These are inviting in a more "buckle up cowboy" sort of way. The fall down into the Depths is tense. It's almost all Rush, with the Scope and Agency being modified. You can't see all of the land below because of the all engulfing darkness. Instead, the Scope is expressed by the sheer size of the gapping hole and how rapid and wide the mouth of the chasms gets. Agency is pretty much gone entirely, since you can't really chose where to land below. Like *Skyward Sword*'s portals to the surface, the voids act as portals to the Depths. I think this is okay though; 1) because there are so many other opportunities for agency and 2) because the Depths are supposed to have an air of suspense, tension, and dread about them. Removing the agency and dropping you into the unknown adds to that feeling. All of these mechanics and systems feed back into getting you airborne. Being airborne is just a means to an end though. The real key to the feedback loop is to get you to poke and prod your curiosity; to look out over the thrilling, exciting, reactive world and follow that innate compulsion. The developer wants you to engage with their world. They want you to feel the rush, absorb the scope, and exercise your own agency. No matter if it's Epic or Nintendo, they're asking you "Where we droppin'?" and it's up to you to answer that question. Whether the answer leads to surprise, hilarity, tension, caves, wonders, towers, dubs, or thrills, it is a question I am eager to answer again and again. Now, where we droppin' boys?