This is untrue.

You could just go around.

Not in a challenge shrine...

Me too!

It's been too long since I played it last.

Then you can go back outside.

You are focusing too much on the "areas to pass" example, the point is that it doesn't allow you to do what you want. It's one thing for the game to provide a challenge, it's another to make it virtually impossible because of a weapon break mechanic which isn't dictated by the player's skill whatsoever...

You can't as a fanbase champion freedom and then tell someone to just do some other part of the game instead of what they want to do as a defense of a mechanic which is honestly not worth sacrificing the freedom of the game that so many claim to care about. 

No offence but that's more down to you as resource management is a part of the game as well as a balance mechanic it's like in the RE2 remake you can run out of ammo or be low at critical points in the game as the whole idea is to manage your resources whether it's picking and choosing your battles or deciding to come back later when you have more gear and such.

Consider me shocked that people praise the freedom of Breath of the Wild up and down and then the moment said freedom is put into question people turn on the person who pointed it out and not the game itself  

Anyways, your scenario isn't correct. I went to one of the early villages you are supposed to go to in the game and saw a shrine on a cliff near the sea. It was very obvious that the designers expected you to see that shrine and want to investigate it. I did and guess what? It ended up being one of the hardest combat shrines in the entire game. So even though I had more resources than I could imagine ... I basically was forced to quit, because they all broke since the health of the enemy was absolutely ridiculous. Worst of all, I got the enemy pattern after only a few minutes, but because my weapons were already broken by then I basically had to keep throwing bombs over and over again. I ended up just quitting because the area the developers put the shrine in, as well as the weapon breaking mechanic, were total bullshit. 

You're mistaking failure of resource management and preparation for freedom being put into question, the designers put shrines to be done when ever you can the is no mandatory time to go into any shrine hence why they don't need to be completed to be used as teleport points you going in unprepared is not freedom being questioned it's the game telling you can try it if you want we won't stop you but if you're unprepared don't expect to be given an easy ride. You basically fought a higher tier enemy with weak early game weapons that's why you had to quit it's would be like me challenging a super boss in any rpg with out the proper set ups 9 times out of 10 the boss will win.

So?

It's honestly the designers fault for putting the shrine in a place they knew would be explored mostly by early game players ... had the weapon durability not been a factor and skill was the only thing that mattered? I would be more than happy with that kind of design decision. But knowing that weapon durability is basically the name of the game ... it's such a questionable decision to put that shrine there. 

And you're missing the entire point with the last part of your comment. That's exactly the point. In games without weapon durability you can face enemies that are a significantly higher level than you without having to get superior weapons as long as you know what you're doing. If I am able to learn an enemies attack patterns, then I should be able to beat the enemy. It might take a longer amount of time to with lower level weapons, but at least I'm able to do it. In Breath of the Wild, you're only allowed to do it on the technicality that remote bombs are a thing, but even then you're sacrificing more than you're earning because your entire weapon arsenal can perish. This is why it wasn't a good idea for you to assume I wasn't "prepared", because it actually punctuates the problem even further. To have a weapon durability system that is so exaggerated that my entire arsenal of early game weapons can be depleted, along with my bows and arrows, before a boss that's in an early part of the game dies, is terrible.

It's even worse because Zelda games are not "RPGs", they just have RPG elements, but so do a lot of games which come out these days. In an adventure game the ability to defeat enemies should be based on your skill level, not a number near a weapon. 

And all of this is assuming that the only point against weapon durability is the freedom of the player, too. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely a mark against weapon durability, but there are other problems with it, such as the fun factor. It's fun to lose weapons in the middle of the field and scavenge for new ones while enemies shoot bows at you and throw bombs. It's fun to fight with a broomstick while fields are set on fire. It's NOT fun to do any of this during a boss battle, and the whole concept of weapon durability gets tiring after a while. It's not so much the feeling of losing a powerful weapon, at least for me, as much as it is the constant breaks in the middle of battle to look at the user interface - which isn't very well made in the first place. 

Your Resident Evil 2 example isn't that applicable to Breath of the Wild. Resident Evil 2 is simply a much more linear game with less factors to consider - it still offers choices that affect the game, but ultimately it's not advertised as an open world freedom-based title. One game is based around interesting risk-reward scenarios in a linear environment, the other is a game that nearly blocks off content even though it's advertised as an exploration title. Your also never guaranteed to get the items you want back in Breath of the Wild, which is a key difference between weapon durability and ammo (notice how 99.99% of the people who don't like weapon durability do not complain about bows having limited arrows?)

Look, I'm not the kind of person who hated weapon durability day one. Pretty sure I was even that guy that subconsciously laughed at all the overblown complaining about it. I know I had a similar attitude about the complaints regarding weather. And I even used a lot of the same excuses that are still said nowadays. "You're missing the point of the game!", "It's the wild!", etc. Well, while I don't think that weapon durability is bad enough for it to affect my enjoyment of the game to the same level it does for many other people, I'm still not in favor of it. People talk about how it's such a great mechanic because it forces you to use weapons that you aren't familiar with, and while that's a pretty good way to make people expand their horizons, there's also a lot of other ways to do it that don't require forcing people into giving up everything they've earned. For example, Breath of the Wild already has a lot of fascinating and unique weapons. Make more of those! Create a diverse arsenal with unique weapons akin to traditional action games. Make enemies more multi-faceted so that you have to find exploits in their design. Develop a combat system which is more in-depth than what we have currently. 

It's fine to have your opinion and I think we can both agree that the mechanic isn't a deal-breaker. I think I would even go as far as to say more focus on survival elements wouldn't be bad for the sequel. But for a game which is constantly championed as breaking new boundaries in the gaming industry, it sure is interesting how closely people want to stick to the ideas from the game without budge. 

People are fine with the weapon durability because it fits fine with in the game's design that's why, freedom to do what you want doesn't equal freedom of all consequence regardless of your actions much like in RE2 if you go in guns blazing instead of choosing to avoid some battles you'll run out of ammo and this can happen early on and RE2 while being more linear has far more exploration than other RE titles and in parts of the game you're pursued by an unkillable free roaming boss who is programmed to always find you, much like in GTA games you can decide to go on a rampage and the law will turn up with bigger guns and vehicles and in BOTW if you fight higher tier enemies with branches and rusty swords from early on chances are you're going to be shown whose yard it is.

Facing enemies stronger than yourself is a common risk in all open world games it's a part of the design BOTW is even lenient as you can escape easily while in RPGS escape is harder, BOTW makes it easy to acquire weapons an example is someone in this thread simply went to Hyrule Castle area just to pick up some strong gear then steam rolled the same enemies that made you run. The durability is a require balancing mechanic for the game's weapons and a part of the design approach the freedom is about finding your way around and making decisions on the situation based on your resource management and preparation otherwise the second you pick up an Ice Rod the game's balance would be broken, not being guaranteed to get the weapon back is one thing that should make you consider how you tackle things that's resource management it's not for everyone but it's not really anything against durability either as it fits into the intended design. Zelda already has depth in its combat the are several embed and linked videos in this thread showing it I'll even leave two below as an example.

The depth in game is more akin to a game like Smash where you utilize what you've got to manipulate the game's mechanics with in the situation an example not shown in these videos but an another one is where a player is fighting a Hinox with metal shin guards, he uses the electric chu trick to stun it for damage.