Above ground, the earth around Hyrule Castle shakes, sending birds flying noisily away. His neck snaps toward the camera his eyes lighting up with an orange glow. A neon bright severed arm juts from his chest. A dried out body, which fans speculate is the corpse of Ganondorf (though it resembles one of the ancient monks, who once would have congratulated Link upon the completion of a shrine), is shown surrounded by tendrils of malice. The oozy black malice that flowed from Calamity Ganon in the previous game seems to have vanished entirely on the surface, but remains active (if in diminished capacity) underground. The trailer finds Link and Princess Zelda (who now sports shoulder-length hair, the symbolism of which this article does a good job of unpacking) with torches in hand, inspecting the runes along the dark rock walls in a cavern seemingly located below Hyrule Castle. So, on the one hand, this is clearly a sequel.īut, as a mood piece, this first look suggests a very different kind of game. Link and Zelda even sport the same blue clothing they wore last time around. Additionally, a quick glimpse of Hyrule shows the same prominent castle and rolling green hills that defined BOTW ’s landscape.
“ Breath of the Wild 2” looks to be no different its graphics, as seen in the trailer, are virtually indistinguishable from those used in the first game. The Zelda games have often used art style as a shorthand to indicate continuity - Majora’s Mask reused assets from Ocarina of Time (allowing for a breathtakingly quick year-and-a-half turnaround time) Phantom Hourglass, the DS sequel to The Wind Waker, adopted its predecessor’s cel-shaded style and A Link Between Worlds recreated the map of its classic precursor, A Link to the Past. The brief tease that Nintendo unveiled at the end of their E3 2019 Direct video presentation on Tuesday, revealed a Hyrule that is largely unchanged, and yet, completely different. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is getting a sequel that looks scarier every time I watch the trailer.