Why Breath of The Wild 2 Is Delayed Until Spring 2023
Nintendo officially delayed the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to Spring 2023 for reasons that aren't entirely clear.
Nintendo has recently announced its decision to delay the still untitled sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The highly anticipated follow-up to the 2017 Switch launch title was confirmed to be in development at E3 in 2019, and was initially expected to release sometime in 2022. Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma appeared in a short video to disclose the delay, saying BOTW 2 is now expected to arrive in Spring 2023.
Since BOTW 2's announcement, Nintendo has been quite protective of any information on the game, releasing only two trailers. Aonuma was equally enigmatic in the delay video, not providing much of a reason for why it was delayed beyond the development team requiring more time. Although the gameplay clips spliced into the video alongside shots of Aonuma have mostly been seen before, there was some new footage showing a ruined Master Sword, leading fans to speculate that reforging the Blade of Evil's Bane will be a major focus of the upcoming Breath of the Wild sequel.
The full video, which is only a minute and a half long, can be watched on the Nintendo of America Twitter page. Nintendo is generally known for a high level of polish in its games, and with The Legend of Zelda being one of the company's flagship series, the delay isn't surprising. Aonuma assures fans that the entire development team is still dedicated to delivering BOTW 2, and even though it's a sequel, will contain plenty of new features.
It may partially be these new gameplay features teased for BOTW 2 that are responsible for the delay. Nintendo seems to rarely release games for its biggest franchises without some new gameplay gimmick, so even though this is a direct sequel, Aonuma saying, "there will be an even wider variety of features [players] can enjoy, including new encounters and new gameplay elements" suggests BOTW 2 will have multiple new dimensions to it. Even the new encounters - if that is referring to new enemy types - could conceivably take a lot of development time, especially considering how lacking the first game was in enemy variety.
There were also allusions to the scope of the game world contributing the required development time. Hyrule in BOTW is already massive, and Aonuma reinforces the fact that BOTW 2 will take place "also in the skies above." BOTW 2 can improve Skyward Sword's aerial map, but Aonuma says, "the expanded world goes beyond that." Building on the foundation of the first game is likely tricky, with any places where the ground has begun to levitate (like Hyrule Castle in the announcement trailer) requiring new terrain to be modeled in the hole left behind. The new scope of the Breath of the Wild sequel may be causing optimization issues as well, since the first game had notoriously low frame rate in certain areas.