Bethesda chief Todd Howard says The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is his favorite game in the franchise, praising its freedom.

Bethesda’s Todd Howard recently shared his thoughts on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, comparing it favorably to his own open-world games. Howard has been the game director for all of Bethesda Game Studios’ modern releases. Suffice it to say he is one of the industry leaders in open-world game development and design. Understandably, he has a deep knowledge of The Legend of Zelda franchise, but his thoughts on Breath of the Wild may come as a surprise.

Howard has spoken candidly about open-world projects before. He has previously said that Bethesda’s games are designed to arouse and reward curiosity. The features of his games are designed to layer on top of each other in complex and surprising ways, allowing all the “intersection of weird things” to create special moments. Howard pushes the idea that players should take on as much as a game has to offer to see how the game handles it.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that in a recent interview with YouTuber Lex Fridman, Howard says that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is his favorite game from the Zelda franchise. He calls it “magical” and says it’s “fantastic”. He seems genuinely in love with Breath of the Wild, which is a nice sentiment because Howard is so often focused on hyping Bethesda’s upcoming games that he rarely has time to talk about other titles he loves.

By his own admission, Howard likes Breath of the Wild partly because it’s an open-world game like the ones he’s making at Bethesda. There have been several open-world games in the Zelda franchise before, be it Wind Waker, A Link to the Past or the 1986 original, but there’s something about Breath of the Wild that appeals to Howard. He praises the freedom of the action-adventure game, saying it is “not constrained.” Specifically, Howard says Breath of the Wild only limits players based on unearned abilities rather than setting up “arbitrary barriers” that prohibit exploration.

Howard is not the only one who considers The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild the best game in the series. Breath of the Wild is by far the best-selling game in the franchise with more than 26 million copies sold, the only Zelda game ever to sell more than 10 million copies in a single release. The kind of courage with which Breath of the Wild was created, and its subsequent success, is probably deeply admired by most game directors.

What’s particularly interesting about Howard’s take on Breath of the Wild is the contrast between Nintendo’s game and Bethesda’s own titles. It’s hard to directly compare the straightforward simplicity of Breath of the Wild with the intricate systems of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. Each has its own pluses and minuses, and each deserves praise in its own way.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been available on Nintendo Switch and Wii U since February 2017, and a sequel is in the works and is expected next year.