The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 Builds on the Original But is its “Own Game”

The sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild doesn’t have an official name yet (because that could provide hints for its story) but there is a new gameplay trailer. Unveiled at the recent Nintendo Direct, it ventures to the skies of Hyrule with floating islands, skydiving and much more. Of course, it also looks visually similar to Breath of the Wild which prompted comparisons to The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, which is a sequel to Ocarina of Time.

While making comparisons is understandable, as per Nintendo Treehouse’s Bill Trinen, the Breath of the Wild sequel is its “own game.” Speaking to IGN, Trinen said, “I would say it’s an easy comparison or conclusion to jump to at this point in time, just given what’s been shown so far and given the nature of it being a direct sequel. So I understand people making that conclusion, but at the same time – and I don’t want to delve too much into it – but this is its own game.”

Regarding how the sequel reuses parts of the original – like Majora’s Mask did with its predecessor, Trinen said, “I think as we start to show a bit more of the game over the coming months to the next year or so, it’ll probably start to be a bit more apparent where this game stands on its own and what makes it so unique.” He then added that “the way that [this sequel] builds on Breath of the Wild, which already was such an expansive game with so many layers of Link’s abilities and layers to the gameplay…I think this is going to layer quite a bit more into that.”

Nintendo revealed during the latest trailer that sequel would be coming in 2022, though no fixed date was provided. Despite being announced two years ago, development has been steadily progressing according to series producer Eiji Aonuma. So we’ll just have to wait for more details in the meantime.

Though Aonuma confirmed that no other Zelda titles would be released for the Switch as part of the series’ 35th anniversary, there’s still plenty of new content coming. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD releases for Switch on July 16th while Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity receives its first expansion, Pulse of the Ancients, on June 18th.