Fans have been waiting for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 news for almost two years. After the initial June 2019 reveal, the game has only been mentioned to say that it’s not ready to be shown yet. This is a lot more silence then Nintendo fans are used to, and it's only been compounded by the similar silence experienced for Metroid Prime 4 and Bayonetta 3. There’s a lot of anticipation for a big news expose, and fans are suspecting it’s going to happen at E3 2021 to coincide with Zelda’s 35th anniversary. For as painful as this long, quiet wait has been, it may have been to the game’s (and the players’) ultimate benefit.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is likely going to be big, and that sort of scope takes time. Nintendo holds its first-party titles to a very high degree of polish, and BotW 2 will be no different. A game of its size needs a lot of man hours to work out many of the bugs out of its system, and the ongoing pandemic surely hasn’t helped things go smoothly. It’s in everyone’s best interests for Nintendo to move at its own pace and release the best product it possibly can. The game waiting at the end of all this can only be better for it.
Won’t Set Wrong Expectations
BotW fans are excited and have been theorizing what the sequel is going to be like ever since its announcement. Some YouTube channels have even made their living off of posting speculation about what it will contain. This could be seen as fans setting up wildly overblown expectations for Breath of the Wild 2, something they know nothing about. This is certainly true to some extent, but there’s only so much damage an overactive imagination can do based on a single cutscene. It has been to Nintendo’s benefit to keep a tight lid on BotW 2’s attributes, as it can keep full control over what fans see in the final game.
After such a long development cycle, fans will see what the final build will look like when Nintendo's ready. While the title can still be compared to its predecessors, there will be no grieving over lost features, as all that BotW 2 is should be present in-game by the time radio silence has been broken.
Rebuilding Hyrule
Part of that development process involves actually building everything in Breath of the Wild 2. While there was a statement about BotW 2 reusing the first game’s map near its reveal, there is no way players will end up seeing the same map with updated monsters and quests, at least not exactly anyway. A lot of little things throughout Hyrule will probably have changed. There may be altered geography from earthquakes caused by what appears to be Ganondorf’s resurrection, or there could be a stronger emphasis on tunnels leading to dungeons. The first game’s Master Mode element of airborne common enemies could be expanded upon, and there could even be parts of the playable map that reach outside of Hyrule into the mysterious surrounding lands.
Most intriguing, however, is the prospect of a second world. The Legend of Zelda has been known for its dual worlds for decades, whether they be twisted dark reflections, parallel dimensions, different seasons, or other points in time. It’s not yet clear what BotW 2’s plot will be, but it could easily fit in a dark world or jump into the distant or recent past. Players have already seen the modern incarnations of the different tribes’ Champions and spent time with their ancestors in Age of Calamity.
So, it stands to reason that Link could travel back to when the glowing arm in the reveal trailer was made, and talk to the ancestors’ ancestors. At the height of his power and intelligence, Ganondorf could also plunge entire regions of the world into Malice-infested miasma, necessitating quests to free them. Regardless of what form it takes, BotW 2’s Hyrule will probably feel brand new, and that will have taken a lot of time and effort to get right.
Around for the Anniversary
As was mentioned above, the 35th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda is happening right now. Fans are reminiscing about their favorite Zelda games, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is coming out later this year as part of Nintendo’s own celebrations. However, there’s a much bigger birthday bomb waiting to be dropped. Breath of the Wild 2 would make the perfect celebration if it can be ready by the end of 2021. BotW 1 already paid a massive amount of homage to all the Zelda games before it, calling back to concepts present in all of the various Zelda timelines and fashioning itself after the more open original Zelda game. A BotW 2 holiday 2021 release would be the perfect capstone to a year of Zelda festivities, even if it's not likely.
But Breath of the Wild 2 missing one anniversary doesn’t mean it can’t make another. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild released on March 3, 2017, and that means BotW 2 can still make its predecessor’s fifth anniversary in 2022. Breath of the Wild marked an enormous shift in the Zelda series’ design, moving from a directed dungeon-exploring approach to an open world with puzzles and little trials dotting the landscape. While some things like the absence of typical full-length dungeons and the presence of breakable weapons irked some fans, the game was praised for its incredibly open and freeform nature, and has been held up as an example of an open world’s potential. That’s a difficult legacy to shoulder, but The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is still in prime position to pick up right where its predecessor left off and deliver another modern Zelda classic.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is in development for Nintendo Switch.