From Dark Souls to Genshin Impact: 7 games shaped by Zelda

The Legend of Zelda has influenced far more than games built around swords, dungeons and fantasy kingdoms. Across several hardware generations, Nintendo kept introducing ideas other developers picked up, changed and pushed in new directions. Lock-on combat. Equipment tied to exploration. Open maps driven by curiosity rather than a checklist. You can see those ideas across very different games. Some borrow a single mechanic. Others take several parts of the Zelda formula and rebuild them around a new combat system, setting or structure. Here are seven games where the connection is hard to miss.

Tunic turns Zelda-style discovery into a game about information

Tunic makes its inspiration clear quickly. A fox with a sword and shield explores an isometric map filled with ruins, enemies, hidden paths and doors you can’t open yet. Its best trick sits in the manual. Players collect individual pages filled with diagrams, maps and partial instructions. One page can explain a mechanic available for hours. Another can expose a route hiding in plain view.

Progress often comes from learning rather than gaining a stronger weapon. You might realise a path was usable from the start or spot a detail which changes how a familiar room works. Tunic takes Zelda’s love of discovery and turns information itself into progression.

Dark Souls takes 3D lock-on combat into a harsher action RPG

Dark Souls and Zelda seem far apart at first. The connection becomes easier to spot once combat starts. Ocarina of Time’s Z-targeting gave players a clean way to stay focused on one enemy during close-range fights. Dark Souls uses a related lock-on system inside slower combat built around stamina, spacing, blocking, dodging and timing.

Its map design adds another link. Doors become shortcuts. Lifts connect distant areas. Routes fold into places visited much earlier. Learning a location matters nearly as much as learning an enemy. Dark Souls isn’t following Zelda’s structure, but it develops several ideas familiar from 3D action adventures and pushes them into a much stricter combat system.

Okami takes the Zelda dungeon formula and gives it a brush

Okami makes the Zelda comparison easy. Players move through connected regions, enter dungeons, gain new abilities and use fresh techniques to solve environmental puzzles. The Celestial Brush changes the rhythm. Pause the action, draw across the screen and the scene reacts. A line can cut certain objects. A circle can restore damaged structures. Other techniques interact with wind, water and nearby objects.

New brush skills keep serving a purpose after their first appearance. Earlier areas can contain routes or puzzles you couldn’t handle before. Boss fights often build on ideas introduced in the surrounding dungeon. The structure is familiar, but Okami’s drawing system gives it a character entirely its own.

Shadow of the Colossus turns each boss into the dungeon itself

Shadow of the Colossus drops the usual dungeon rooms, keys and groups of smaller enemies. Each Colossus becomes a moving puzzle. Getting close is only the first part. Players study the creature, find a route onto its body and work out how to reach weak points. Fur gives Wander something to grip. Armour blocks access. Moving limbs create brief openings. Stamina limits how long he can hang on.

Zelda bosses often ask players to solve an encounter rather than attack without a plan. Shadow of the Colossus stretches a similar idea across an entire game. There isn’t a dungeon before the boss. In many cases, the boss is the dungeon.

Genshin Impact carries Breath of the Wild’s climbing into a huge action RPG

Genshin Impact drew Breath of the Wild comparisons almost immediately, and movement explains much of it. Players can climb cliffs, scale towers and glide from high ground. See something interesting in the distance and you can often head straight for it. Stamina limits how far you can climb without turning every mountain into a wall.

Puzzles, treasure, enemy camps and landmarks keep pulling players away from the main route. Genshin soon builds its own identity through elemental combat, character switching, party building and a large roster. Its clearest Zelda connection remains movement. Breath of the Wild made terrain part of play, and Genshin adopted a similar idea for a very different action RPG.

Death’s Door compresses Zelda-style progression into a tighter adventure

Death’s Door keeps its map compact, but its progression has clear links to classic Zelda design. Areas wrap around locked gates, ladders, shortcuts and routes visible before you can reach them. New abilities do more than help in combat. A ranged attack can trigger a mechanism, open a route or solve an environmental puzzle.

This keeps each tool useful after its introduction. Combat moves faster than traditional Zelda, with dodging and attack timing carrying much of each fight. Between encounters, the focus shifts to exploration, shortcuts and blocked paths. Death’s Door takes the relationship between abilities, puzzles and exploration and packs it into a leaner action game with very little wasted space.

Darksiders hides a classic Zelda dungeon structure under heavy combat

Darksiders makes a loud first impression. War carries huge weapons, demons fill ruined streets and combat leans on heavy combos and oversized enemies. Underneath sits a familiar adventure structure.

Large areas feed into dungeons filled with puzzles, blocked routes and specialised equipment. A new tool usually appears near several situations built around its use. Later rooms ask more from the same mechanic before a boss pulls the ideas together. Equipment keeps its value after the dungeon ends, opening routes in older areas.

The combat comes from a heavier action tradition, but the wider structure is pure equipment-driven adventure design. Remove the apocalypse and giant swords, and the Zelda influence becomes much easier to spot.

Zelda’s influence shows up in different pieces

None of these games copies Zelda from top to bottom. Tunic turns information into progression. Dark Souls develops 3D targeting and connected spaces. Okami rebuilds dungeon progression around the Celestial Brush. Shadow of the Colossus turns bosses into moving puzzles.

Genshin Impact makes climbing and gliding central to exploration. Death’s Door compresses ability-driven progression into smaller areas. Darksiders wraps traditional dungeon design inside heavier combat. The connection can appear in a targeting system, a hidden route, a new ability or a mountain you decide to climb instead of following the road.