In the Midwest, one amusement park reigns supreme. You might love Michigan Adventure, your local Six Flags, or Kings Island, but Cedar Point is the true king of the region’s theme parks, home to the second (Top Thrill 2) and seventh (Millennium Force) tallest steel roller coasters in the world, alongside the globe’s third and eighth (Top Thrill 2 and Millennium Force, again) fastest steel coasters.
A Long Hiatus From Cedar Point
I first rode the Millennium Force the year it opened, all the way back in 2000. I was six years old and just tall enough to meet the height requirement, but a little too young to be mentally or emotionally prepared for its 300 foot, 90 degree drop and 93 mph max speed. My mom still regrets taking me on it that young, and I did suffer from a fear of heights through my adolescence that may or may not have been a result of that experience. But I cured that fear the same way I got it: by going to Cedar Point and riding gnarly rides.
Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I went to Cedar Point every couple years. But, after going with friends (including my future wife) in 2013, I never had the time to go back. I became a no excuses adult (the kind with a full-time job and limited vacation time) a few years after that trip, so maybe I just didn’t have the room in my schedule. When I walked under the Gatekeeper — the twisty coaster that sends riders speeding over the park entrance hundreds of times a day — this weekend, 11 years had passed since my last trip.
In those 11 years, I… well… have had the entirety of my career. I graduated college, got a job at a local newspaper, went freelance to write about games and, eventually, got this job as a Features Editor at TheGamer. When I last went to Cedar Point, I wasn’t really playing games at all, much less thinking about them in a serious way. It wasn’t until three years later, when I graduated and picked the hobby back up, that I began to think critically about the medium I grew up loving.
What Breath Of The Wild And Cedar Point Have In Common
One of the early games I played in those 11 years wasThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game that is notable for using some of the same design techniques as theme parks. In Breath of the Wild, the player’s eyes are directed around Hyrule by ‘weenies’, or ‘visual magnets’ that attract attention and pull the player in their direction.
Think about how you’re able to see Hyrule Castle (or, at least, the Ganon funk above it) from basically anywhere in the game. Think about how, when you enter a new region, you often see one of the Divine Beasts in the distance, drawing you to the area’s city. Think about how, as you glide over Hyrule, you frequently see the telltale orange light of a shrine you haven’t yet visited on the ground below. All of these visual cues drive your behavior, and the idea was originated by Disney Imagineers who used Cinderella’s Castle as a way to draw guests to the center of the park, and individual rides to draw them through the separate themed lands.
At Cedar Point last weekend, I used rides the same way I’ve used Vah Naboris upon entering the Gerudo Desert. The Power Tower, which raises riders up 240 feet in the air, before dropping them to the ground below, was a frequent guide post. The Top Thrill 2 — which is out of commission as it undergoes an upgrade from its original incarnation, the Top Thrill Dragster, before reopening in 2025 — was another useful weenie, with its twin spires towering over the park. The most lost I ever felt was while looking for an attraction that didn’t have a weenie component, one of the haunted walkthroughs in the scary section of the park furthest away from the entrance.
Since playing Breath of the Wild back in 2017, I’ve known that theme parks were key to inspiring its open-world design. But actually going back to a theme park after so long away brought home just how much Link’s world and the world of roller coasters have in common.
