The Legend Of Zelda Meets Portal In New Puzzle Adventure

56 minutes ago 12

Published Sep 13, 2026, 9:00 PM EDT

Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work.

Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work.

The Legend of Zelda is a fairly puzzle-laden series, one peppered with compelling dungeons teeming with mysteries and puzzles to be solved. While the later entries, namely the Wilds era, moved away from them just a little (although Breath of the Wild's shrines remain some of the best puzzles in video game history), intricately designed puzzles are and always will be at the heart of the series' core design philosophy.

As a result, it makes sense that those taking inspiration from The Legend of Zelda wouldn't always go down the open-world Wilds route, but would occasionally choose to adopt its focus on puzzles. Such is the case with the latest game inspired by The Legend of Zelda, a brand-new fantasy adventure title that combines the legendary series with the equally brilliant Portal to offer fans something unlike anything they've ever experienced before.

This New Adventure Game Blends Portal With The Legend of Zelda

The player looking at stained glass in He Who Watches.

With the latest gameplay of Ocarina of Time's remake showcasing just how Nintendo revamped the iconic N64 experience, it feels as if we're slowly but surely being ushered into a new age of Zelda games. That original focus on dungeons, linear exploration, and puzzles is coming back to the forefront, with the expansive open worlds of Breath of the Wild potentially being a thing of the past. That isn't a bad thing, necessarily, as old-school Zelda absolutely has its place in modern gaming.

To be clear, there's every chance we'll get a new Wilds-esque Zelda game sometime soon, especially considering just how financially successful that series was. However, even if Nintendo were to once again abandon the old-school Zelda formula, it very much feels as if the floodgates have opened, and, at the very least, inspired developers will offer it in droves. Such is the case, at least to an extent, with the incredible and very much inspired He Who Watches, a Portal-like puzzle title with a Zelda-esque twist.

He Who Watches kits players out with a bow, rather than a gun, and a singular, magical arrow that can be recalled at a moment's notice. With this very Zelda-esque equipment, they must explore a fantastical, seemingly impossible structure filled with mysteries and abstract imagery that wouldn't feel out of place in a Breath of the Wilds ruin or Ocarina of Time dungeon. With the visuals and atmosphere of a Zelda game and the first-person puzzle-solving shenanigans of Portal, this incredible new indie is absolutely in with a chance to become everyone's favorite new game.

He Who Watches Could Be The Next Indie Darling

The player aiming their bow at a puzzle in He Who Watches.

Developed by solo dev Bobby Vanden, He Who Watches features over 100 unique puzzles, each of which demands an entirely new way to solve it. Much like Portal before it, He Who Watches is a very approachable puzzle experience, one in which the solution is always at the tip of your tongue and requires just a little finesse to figure it out. That's not to say that He Who Watches is easy, far from it (although it offers guidance to those who get stuck), but rather it's intuitive, creatively designed, and intelligent.

It is for this reason that He Who Watches' relative lack of exposure is somewhat disappointing. This is an excellently crafted puzzle game that very much stands toe-to-toe with Valve's magnum opus, and yet, after over a week of being out, it has only garnered a handful of reviews on Steam. He Who Watches deserves so much more love, as it truly feels like the spiritual successor to Portal, albeit with a healthy sprinkling of The Legend of Zelda influence in there to help spice things up.