Zelda Breath of the Wild 2 Release Date, Theories, and the Reveal Trailer

Zelda Breath of the Wild 2 is coming, and it was the bombshell that Nintendo ended their E3 2019 on. Right now there's only the debut trailer for the sequel to go on, but there's actually plenty of hints about the nature of the game buried deep within the trailer. Elsewhere in this guide, we'll compile all the Zelda Breath of the Wild 2 release date information we have to go on (and there's more than you might think), as well as fan theories from the reveal trailer.

Zelda Breath of the Wild 2 Release Date

While there wasn't an actual Breath of the Wild 2 release date specified in the trailer, there could be a hint about a release date found elsewhere. At the end of 2018, our sister site Eurogamer reported that Nintendo is "keen to have a Zelda game launch on Switch every year."

If this is the case, could we be looking at a 2020 release for Breath of the Wild 2? There has actually been a Zelda game launch on the Switch every year since 2017: Breath of the Wild launched in 2017, Hyrule Warriors launched in 2018, and now the Link's Awakening remake will launch later in 2019. Could Breath of the Wild 2 be the Zelda title on the Switch for 2020?

Zelda Breath of the Wild 2 Trailer

We know that Link and Zelda from Breath of the Wild are obviously returning, in the game that most people are probably going to refer to as Breath of the Wild 2. In the announcement trailer below, we can see Link and Zelda journeying underground together. Zelda has a fresh new cut!

We saw what certainly looked like the same landscape from Breath of the Wild in 2017 in the new trailer. At the end of the teaser trailer for Breath of the Wild 2, we cut to a wide shot of Hyrule, with Hyrule Castle in the far distant. This almost looks like the view that we had at the very start of the original Breath of the Wild in 2017.

Also returning to Breath of the Wild 2 is director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, who helmed the original 2017 game. Game Informer interviewed series producer Eiji Aonuma, who said "One of the reasons we wanted to create a continuation was because I wanted to revisit that Hyrule again and use that world again, while incorporating new gameplay and new story."

Breath of the Wild 2 Fan Theories

Ok, so stick with us for a moment here. None of the following details have been in any way confirmed by Nintendo, and they're entirely the product of our own speculative minds. Firstly yes, we absolutely believe the Hyrule basement is haunted.

Secondly, we love the theory that Zelda is going to be at least playable in Breath of the Wild 2. It'd be a really nice change to play as the princess, who has literally spent the last 100 years before the events of this sequel stuck in a castle with Ganondorf.

In fact, our Nadia Oxford definitely thinks that Breath of the Wild 2 has us playing as Princess Zelda, mainly because royal women cutting their hair is typically a trope seen when pampered royalty abandons their lifestyle. Check out our full Breath of the Wild 2 feature for more.

In an interview with Kotaku, Eiji Aonuma wouldn't comment when asked whether you can play as Princess Zelda in Breath of the Wild 2. We're still holding out hope though, nonetheless.

As Nadia also mentions in the feature, there's a few frames where we see Link's arm possessed by a ghostly force. This sure doesn't look like the Ganon affliction, which we can see taking a red form and spreading through the underground areas elsewhere in the trailer, but it looks bright and green. Could Link be getting some fancy ghost-like powers in Breath of the Wild 2?

As one eagle-eyed Twitter uses noticed in the tweet below, all of the Divine Beasts and Shrines appear to have vanished in Breath of the Wild 2. What could this mean for the sequel? Our money's on a bit of a time jump between the 2017 release and this sequel. Perhaps the land of Hyrule has finally had time to heal from Calamity Ganon.

And then we arrive at 'hydrated Ganon.' This is why we can't have nice things. A lot of people think that the demonic creature we see in the final shot of the Breath of the Wild 2 trailer is in fact a reanimated Calamity Ganon. Ok, fine, but this Ganon definitely doesn't looked hydrated to us. He'll need a lot more water before he's back to his former self.

Right now, these are all the details that Nintendo has revealed about the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel. As soon as any additional details become available about this game, we'll be updating this guide straight away.