Watch that trailer. Then again. And again. Best put the looping on and leave it running. It's good stuff. Nintendo knows what the fans want and sometimes even delivers. It's even a 180° turn from the first look trailer at E3 2019, two years ago, and it's an impressive showing right after Skyward Sword HD, finally achieving what many were hoping to get from the Wii game...
Nintendo still hasn't revealed the title yet, where it was stated that this would give away too much already. And they certainly want the fans to spent their time with speculating until next year, where this trailer is offering a whole new perspective on the game with lots of things to talk about.
It actually feels like watching a trailer for two different Zelda projects. One looks like a mediocre third DLC expansion for Breath of the Wild with new abilities and enemy variants, featuring Link as we know him from Breath of the Wild. The other looks like a completely new Zelda game set in a sky world, with new enemies and a Link who resembles the ancient hero from mural, with the same green garb over the left shoulder and longer hair, as well as new old gear.
There's a very stark contrast between the different parts of the footage, where this is very much deliberate. But if you look more closely, then it's all connected and it will be interesting to find out how.
The Ground
Now, that this part of the game appears like another DLC expansion for Breath of the Wild shouldn't be all too surprising, since its development started as extensive DLC ideas for that title. In 2019 this even raised some valid concerns about the sequel, where the trailer put its focus on the idea of exploring the underground of Hyrule, while featuring the same old overworld, just without all the Sheikah technology stuff.
The spelunking still seems to be a thing, but it's only shown briefly in the new gameplay in one scene, where the Link from Breath of the Wild fights some sort of tentacle monster with a flame-throwing dragon head on a shield. This new item is clearly inspired by Min Min, but also reminiscent of the dragon statues in the Zonai ruins, where it already seemed like the underground exploration goes more into the Zonai territories.
Otherwise they show us some new things with the enemies on the overworld, which is also what Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is currently doing. Moblins now have some sort of skull roof, while Bokoblins have been growing horns and got more creative with placing their fortifications. No, really, turning a Talus into a walking fortress is absolutely ingenious:
We also see the "hand" from the first trailer in action, where this confirms that it really will replace the Sheikah Slate for this game. A new version of Stasis is shown, which reverts time for an object, instead of freezing it. This seems actually more limited on first glance, but there might be other uses for it, like demelting ice or repairing crumbled structures.
With the hand as the new Sheikah Slate confirmed, it will most likely come with a Hookshot this time, which was one of the scrapped ideas for Breath of the Wild and could work wonders in the new sky world, and maybe even a new version of the Beetle, which could be very useful there as well.
This is all cool stuff and some interesting ideas, but it's overall even more underwhelming than initially imagined two years ago. Given, they haven't shown much of the potential underground exploration here, but the real joy and excitement in Breath of the Wild always came from exploring the overworld, where having the same world again with some new things on it simply feels boring... But luckily, it's not just that...
The Sky
This is the game changer. When re-using the overworld from Breath of the Wild they had a couple of possibilities to extend it. One was adding underground dungeons and caves, which at first was seemingly what they were doing here, and the other was expanding the map all around for new areas. Now, there was a third and less obvious way, but some people probably saw this coming because of the rising Hyrule Castle: add a new sky world on top.
This is very clever and will make the sequel 100% more interesting, if this is as extensive as it seems to be from the new trailer. A Zelda game set in a sky world has been of fascination to this blog since the beginning, even before Skyward Sword became a thing (see this). Then Skyward Sword became a thing and didn't really deliver. Its sky world didn't offer any real verticality and basically just acted as the game's central hub and village, with a few small extra islands to explore. It was quite underwhelming, even for its time, where this always felt like a missed opportunity.
Then Breath of the Wild was founded on the shortcomings to the overworld of Skyward Sword with its three separate areas, where now the sequel could address the shortcomings of Skyloft and its surroundings. The Paraglider is perfect for exploring such a world in an interesting way, because you can't just freely fly everywhere, like you could with a Loftwing. The different heights between the island will make traversing them a lot more fun and challenging. This is truly what you would expect from such a scenario with floating islands.
With making a sky world there are really two problems. Either there is no real world below the skies, where you just fall into an abyss, or there is a world there, but exploring it then becomes the main focus. The latter is what happened to Skyward Sword, the former is a common trope in other fantasy video games. Now, the sequel to Breath of the Wild sort of circumvents these issues by putting the new sky world above a familiar overworld. The sky world thus becomes the focus now, while you primarily explore the old world to find entries to the new world all above (and maybe also below) you.
These entries seem to be the puddles shown in the trailer, which transport you up and let you even go through solid stone, where these might be portals that let you go up into the new sky world by literally reaching for it (that's such an amazing feel and concept). Going back down is not an issue, since you have the Paraglider, where this can actually be compared to how the Dark World functioned in A Link to the Past. There you needed to find portals in the Light World to enter its various areas, but you always could return back to Hyrule with the Magic Mirror.
Speaking of A Link to the Past and the Dark World, with its golden trees and plants this new sky world might actually represent the Sacred Realm. There might even be a familiar enemy from the game on these sky islands with what appears to be an Eyegore, or at least some new opponent inspired by its design:
This looks crazy and could even lead to this game's signature enemy, replacing the Guardians from Breath of the Wild, who are probably vanished, just like the rest of the Sheikah technology. They could have just re-used the Sheikah technology in the sequel, do some new stuff with it and no one would have complained, but the green magic of the hand, which seemingly also gets utilized by these Eyegores, makes things a lot fresher, while still being similar to the Sheikah technology.
Two Links?
Now, the trailer makes clear cuts between the two scenarios. In the footage on the ground you have the Link from Breath of the Wild and you can't see any islands in the sky (yet). The footage in the sky features a Link who looks a lot more ancient, very similar to the depiction of the hero who faced Calamity Ganon 10,000 years ago. He has much longer hair and gets shown with completely different gear all the time, stuff that looks similarly ancient, except for the familiar Paraglider.
There are multiple explanations for this, really. The one that comes first to mind is that the game might actually let you switch between two different eras (which would be a fourth way of expanding the already existing game world). But this would make things a lot more complicated than it needs to be, especially with managing two different inventories.
An easier explanation is that the footage from the sky takes place in a later part of the game, where there might be some sort of time skip involved. So, you start from where you left off in Breath of the Wild, but at some point the sky world opens up and all this new stuff comes into play.
If we're going with the Sacred Realm theory here, then there might also be a middle ground, where going into the Sacred Realm simply changes Link's appearance and gear. It might also explain why you can't see the sky islands from below, because they are some sort of divine dimension.
That the two Links might truly be one and the same is given away by the weird hand, which they both have and use. But of course the ancient Link could have also left the hand to seal Ganondorf, just like other Links in the past have left the Master Sword for the same purpose... So, it can't really be said for sure, but for the sake of gameplay simplicity it's safer to assume that this is the same Link, just in two very different states of the game.
Then there's also the fact that Hyrule Caste gets risen to the sky at the end of the trailer, where this castle might be Link's ultimate goal again, just like in Breath of the Wild, where both Zelda and Ganondorf await him. Ganondorf's goal could be getting into the Sacred Realm and to the Triforce, just like in old times, which is why Link has to find a way to get up there and stop him. But again, these are just theories and speculation, which is all that Nintendo wants at this point.
Conclusion
This is going to be epic!
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