Nintendo is making us wait one more year for Breath Of The Wild 2 – The A.V. Club

Link—not Zelda—in the Breath Of The Wild 2 preview

Link—not Zelda—in the Breath Of The Wild 2 preview
Screenshot: Nintendo

We’ve been waiting for the sequel to The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild for quite some time now. It was first announced back in 2019 (ah, the Before Times) and Nintendo shared a trailer for it at E3 last year, promising a 2022 release date. It almost seemed too good to be true then, and now Nintendo has officially squashed any hope of playing Breath Of The Wild 2 anytime soon.

The game’s producer Eiji Aonuma made the announcement today in a video, giving the unfortunate update.

“We previously announced that we were aiming for a 2022 release for this game. However, we have decided to extend our development time a bit and change the release to spring 2023,” he said. “For those of you who have been looking forward to a release this year, we apologize.”

He added, “As previously announced, the adventure in this sequel will take place not just on the ground as in the previous game, but also in the skies above. However, the expanded world goes beyond that, and there will be an even wilder variety of features you can enjoy, including new encounters and new gameplay elements.”

Aonuman then explained that this delay is, in part, due to a desire to make the game really great, saying, “In order to make this game’s experience something special, the entire development team is continuing to work diligently on this game, so please wait a while longer.”

It’s a big bummer, but if it means getting an amazing sequel that somehow beats Breath Of The Wild, then we’ll suffer through the wait. Besides the details about all of the new elements in the upcoming game, we don’t really know much else. Nintendo still hasn’t even confirmed the title yet.