Z Targeting – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Ocarina of Time practically wrote the book on how to design adventure games and could be credited with pioneering several aspects of game design. Z-targeting, though, might be its most influential feature, inventing a simple but clever way to focus attention on a single target at the push of a button. The mechanic was adopted by countless titles over the years and still remains popular today.
Of course, Z-targeting hasn’t been universally adopted, with some modern games such as Horizon Zero Dawn letting players engage at will; others automatically locking players onto targets, as seen in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. But neither of those design choices have superseded Z-targeting entirely, which remains a popular design choice and for many still the preferred one.
