Zelda: Master Trials (Switch/Wii U)
By: Nintendo
NOT ones for milking punters with paid additional content, Nintendo has leapt, like a fey trout, into the world of Zelda DLC with the first of two significant Breath of the Wild updates. Not that the original BOTW was miserly with content. My wee fella is into three figures with invested hours and won't stop until he's discovered everything, or social services intervene.
Weary travellers, though, will have good reason to return to Hyrule with this cherry to top the greatest adventure ever created. The headline act is Trial of the Sword, a new area which tasks players with surviving 45 rooms stuffed with enemies. Stripped of all his items, Link must collect gear as he progresses, making this a tall order only those handsomely fatted with hearts should attempt.
The reward is well worth it, though – an awakened Master Sword with doubled damage and no cooldown period. And then there's Master Mode, a rock-hard do-over of the entire game that buffs the enemies (they can spot you from further off and even recover health when not getting walloped) and adds tougher versions of the formidable Lynels.
The sadistic result is a less friendly fairy tale that's like playing a Disneyfied version of Dark Souls.
Sadists will no doubt devour the Master challenge, but even fraidy-cats have plenty of extras to tinker with. Hero's Path proves revelatory and should be standard for all open-world games. A neat map feature that reveals everywhere you've been on your travels, players can wince at just how much of Zelda's vast world remains unexplored.
The Travel Medallion lets players warp back to wherever it's been dropped while the Korok mask alerts wearers when any of the perennially out-of-sight woodland poo-gifters are nearby – a must for completists.
Rounding off the package is a series of cosmetic trinkets including new Tingle, Majora's Mask, Phantom and Midna outfits and three secret chests hidden across the Great Plateau – one containing a natty red Nintendo Switch shirt for Link.
Master Trials is the first of two pieces of Zelda BOTW DLC bundled into a £17.99 season pass and will be followed up with the meatier Champions' Ballad later in the year, which includes new story content featuring the game's four Champions.
They say you can never go back, but Master Trials proves 'em wrong, with more than enough reasons to return to the wild.
