During an investor call on February 2nd, Nintendo shared some of the titles releasing on the Switch in 2022. One such game was the sequel to 2017’s undeniably massive hit The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The Kyoto-based company also included release dates for Kirby and the Forgotten Land and others, while games such as Bayonetta 3, Splatoon 3, and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope were just confirmed to be launching this calendar year.
While Nintendo may indeed be targeting a 2022 release, we have seen very few glimpses of the game, with only an announcement teaser at E3 2019 and a brief trailer at E3 2021 that featured a bit of gameplay.
The original Breath of the Wild was announced for Wii U back at E3 2013, with the first glimpse of the visual style a year later, at E3 2014. We saw our first glimpse of gameplay at The Game Awards that December, where it was reconfirmed that the game would launch the following year.
Nintendo then famously announced that they would not be showing Zelda at E3 2015, and remained silent on the topic until E3 2016, where they announced the game’s subtitle to be Breath of the Wild and showed off three-minutes of jam-packed footage of the game.
The game eventually released on both Wii U and Switch in 2017, a full four years after release, and a full two years late by the twice-confirmed 2015 release window.
Unfortunately, we expect the same to happen here. The game’s assets are likely largely complete given that the company is drawing from many of the same resources as the original game, not unlike the short development window between Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. But we are still yet to see any gameplay demo or short walkthrough of the game.
That being said, with Breath of the Wild being such a massive hit, it does also stand to reason that Nintendo would want to take its time with the title and get it right. They tend to be quite good at that, in fact.
There’s also something to be said for redefining much of the game play in this sequel. A lot of the game appears to take place in the sky, which is not something that Breath of the Wild did at all, really. These mechanics could simply be taking longer to get right.
And that is just fine by us.
Whenever the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild does launch, we’ll be ready.