Five years ago today, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was released on Wii U and the Nintendo Switch. It was on that day that many players have experienced the infamous and beautiful scene on the cliff in the middle of the Great Plateau for the first time, with the view of the gigantic new Hyrule unfolding before them. Breath of the Wild is a monumental entry to the series, which has greatly influenced the open world genre and will shape the Zelda series for many years to come, much like Ocarina of Time before it.
With over 26 million copies sold, it became the most successful Zelda game by a gigantic margin, a number that will be very hard to top in the future. This success essentially spawned a franchise of its own, where Breath of the Wild got its own of everything: merchandise, an amiibo line, an artbook, even an entire Hyrule Warriors game all dedicated to itself. You could even distinct between classic Zelda, with all the games part of Hyrule Historia, and modern Zelda with Breath of the Wild, where the title has left all the other legends far behind on the timeline.
It was a fresh take on Zelda in many ways, where it finally brought the focus back on what may be the most important thing in a Zelda game: exploration. It is unrivaled in giving the player freedom, especially with the ability to climb and glide almost everywhere, as well as employing an intricate physics system for solving all sorts of problems in all sorts of ways.
Now, five years later and after playing Breath of the Wild for hundreds of hours, the fans really only have one question in mind: Where is the sequel? Will the sequel to Breath of the Wild really come out in 2022?
Well... the answer is probably "no". Sure, Nintendo has still listed the game for a 2022 release in their latest financial reports, where the media took this as a re-confirmation, but you shouldn't read too much into that. That's still the release date they gave at E3 2021, where even if their plans have changed internally, they will announce this separately to the public once they are ready. And until then they will go with the given placeholder date of "2022".
Of course it's still possible that it may come out in this year, but it already feels very crowded in 2022. We're getting Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Splatoon 3, and Bayonetta 3. A couple of days ago, for Pokémon Day, it was also announced that Pokémon Scarlet & Violet are coming to the Nintendo Switch in late 2022, which can be seen as Nintendo's big holiday hit.
2022 is going to be a fantastic year for Nintendo, even without the sequel to Breath of the Wild, and it's also going to be a year full of massive open world titles and large-scale Action Adventures all around. Pokémon Legends Arceus, Dyling Light 2, Horizon Forbidden West and Elden Ring were all already released this year, and there are many more to come, including God of War Ragnarök... There will be a huge fatigue when it comes to Action Adventures of this magnitude later in 2022, which isn't exactly a good position for the sequel to Breath of the Wild to be in, no matter how great the game might be. Nintendo will want it to get as much attention as possible, where it's best to wait until the current tide is over.
And with that in mind, an early 2023 release doesn't feel out of place, which still is part of Nintendo's fiscal year 2022 anyway. The same thing happened with Breath of the Wild, which originally was planned for 2016, where history could repeat itself with its sequel, starting with an extensive showcase in June. Come to think of it, March 3rd 2023 will be on a Friday again, where the sequel could be released on the exact date of the sixth anniversary of Breath of the Wild.
In that case the game would also have gotten the exact same development time frame as Breath of the Wild did with a little over five years, considering that the development started at the end of the DLC Expansion Pass in late 2017. It all would add up.
Additionally, the game could get into the same position as Breath of the Wild (and Twilight Princess), where it becomes the launch title for the next Nintendo system. Let's not dive into any "Nintendo Switch Plus" rumors at this point, but Nintendo has been releasing a new model of the Nintendo Switch every second year, where in 2023 we could finally see a second generation for the system. The Nintendo Switch has become quite outdated from a technical view, where players and developers alike would love to get their hands on something with more power.
A new Nintendo Switch will most likely be backwards compatible and here it's thinkable the sequel to Breath of the Wild could make use of the new system's power somehow, but also run on old Nintendo Switch systems, basically like certain GameBoy Color titles did early on, e.g. Link's Awakening DX.
Anyway, as for 2022, the obligatory Zelda release of the year could just be ports of The Wind Waker HD + Twilight Princess HD as a two-in-one package, so that the Nintendo Switch will have the entire collection of 3D Zelda games available before the sequel to Breath of the Wild comes out.
5 comments:
It was certainly a defining franchise entry in the series. Addictive and playable in all the right ways.
However, having spent countless hours myself playing it, I have no desire to replay this one anytime soon. It's just too massive, too long. I played it 100% four times. Twice on the Wii U; twice on the Switch. Regular and Master Modes each. I wasn't even planning to do Switch's Master Mode, but the pandemic gave me time.
And it's not a game I'd feel comfortable playing just to get from the Great Plateau to Ganon. It's pretty much designed to be a full 100% experience.
It's much easier for me to replay something like Wind Waker HD, Ocarina 3D or even Skyward Sword (the Switch HD version certainly gave me the chance). They're deep experiences, but they aren't dragged out. And it's not just the 900 Korok Seeds or the hundred-plus mini-shrines. It's the insane amount of time it takes to farm money and items to upgrade every single piece of armor. Maybe open world games just aren't built for replay value, at least not for me.
In fact, the only Zelda games I got good enough to speedrun were A Link to the Past 100% (2h28) and Majora's Mask N64 (all dungeons within the same 3-day cycle).
Well, I have to agree here, at least for the most part. In fact, you're way ahead of me, since I haven't played Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch yet. I will probably also complete it a 3rd and 4th time there (in Normal and Master Modes), which I want to do around the sequel. But it's certainly not a game that I will keep replaying over and over again, like for example Link's Awakening. (The DLC also has ruined certain things for me, where I personally dread the first Trial of the Sword in Master Mode.)
This simply correlates with the game's length. It's not necessarily meant to be replayed over and over again, at least not with 100% completion. But since the game is so long, in the end I will have still spent more time with Breath of the Wild than most other Zelda games... So, it's fine. And other people enjoy doing all sorts of runs through the game, where for them the replay value is definitely there. So, this is a pure completionist issue.
Also, I wouldn't say that Skyward Sword isn't dragged out, quite the opposite, because the game let's you go through a ton of filler. While Breath of the Wild has tons of filler as well, that filler is all optional. You can beat the main story a lot faster than you ever could in Skyward Sword and the overall pacing is much better, where I would prefer Breath of the Wild on any day.
What I like about BotW is how different each playthrough can be. I respect wanting to 100% every playthrough of a game (me personally I settled for every shrine, screw the koroks) but for my 1st Master Mode run I took a vastly different approach.
In my initial normal playthrough I did the expected goals of freeing all 4 beasts,get master sword, doing the shrines, then beat Ganon. But for master mode I didn't free any of the divine beasts and only did some shrines (didn't want too much health or stamina), and I also didn't get the master sword. Final boss gauntlet ended up being pretty exhilarating this way, especially w the health regen.
@Touriantourist No disagreements there. Skyward Sword can feel a bit dragged out, especially when it comes to farming materials for upgrading weapons, and flying all over the place for Goddess Cubes and Gratitude Crystals. But it still feels closer in spirit and pacing to something like Twilight Princess.
I guess if I were to play BOTW primarily for the Divine Beasts and shrines, I could trim a lot of fat.
Also, very much Zelda-related. This morning, I FINALLY beat Endless Cucco! And I took pictures as proof. It took me 8 years, but it wasn't until this past week that I finally took a deep breath and put the effort into the pause buffering method.
I'm able to survive the first 200 seconds without pausing much at all. Round 1 it's best to stick to the middle, dodging only when necessary. During round 2, moving horizontally back and forth every 5 seconds or so helps to direct large waves of small cuccos away from Link, pausing buffering only to sneak between a pair that's not closing on each other.
Rounds 3 and 4 (200-400) were the biggest run killers for the most part, and it's where I start pause buffering without stopping. Every move and reaction counts. I also died a couple of times on the undeniably brutal round 6 (500-600 - you have to keep track of the small slow moving ones around while dodging the few big fast ones that comes every 3 seconds in waves of 4).
Rounds 7 and 8 are surprisingly easy (also round 5). Just pausing nonstop.
Round 9 (800-900) was the other big run killer. The fast moving cuccos, despite coming in less numbers, can be worse than the big waves of slower ones. One false move and you take a hit from one of cuccos that spawn below Link.
And round 10 (900-999), which I somehow managed to survive without getting hit once is a living, breathing hell. You have even less room to move than round 3. The priority is dodging the big ones, while also keeping track of small ones that could hide within the big ones. I can safely say there is NO way any human player could possibly clear that final gauntlet without pausing.
I could not believe I did it! Nerve-wracking doesn't even begin to describe the ordeal. And then there's the feeling of overcoming 999. Same feeling as beating F-Zero X on Master (another of my backlog leftovers, one over 20 years overdue).
I met the big cucco, and then saved at the Kakariko statue at least 10 times! No way I'm losing that progress! This 3DS and its memory card are going to a museum.
I might, MIGHT, try the whole thing again for the Hero Mode file, so both can be fully completed. Any future playthroughs will be reserved for the 3rd file. Otherwise, I'm never touching this minigame ever again, other than maybe dodging cuccos past 100 seconds, just to set an arbitrary record on file 3.
Oh, wow, congrats!
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