Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma has apologised to fans for the lack of updates on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2.
Speaking during aNintendo Direct presentationon Wednesday—which was also used to announceThe Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD—Aonuma said development of theSwitchsequel was “proceeding smoothly” andNintendoplanned to provide more details later this year.
“I‘m sure a lot of you saw me and thought there might be news about the sequel toThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildgame,” he said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have anything to share right now. We apologise.
“Development is proceeding smoothly, and we should be able to bring you some new information this year,” Aonuma added. “For now, we’ll have to ask you to wait just a bit longer.”
Nintendo announced Breath of the Wild 2 in June 2019 witha trailer featuring Link and Zelda together, but the game hasn’t been shown since.
Aonumapreviously asked fans for patienceduring an update in September 2020, when he said the team was working hard “in order to make the vast world you enjoyed exploring in the original game even more impressive”.
In February 2020 it was claimed by a noted Nintendo insider thatBreath of the Wild 2’s development was taking longer than expectedand that its release would likely miss 2020.
Aonuma confirmed in June 2019 that Breath of the Wild directorHidemaro Fujibayashi had retained his role on the sequel.
In an interview withGame Informer, Aonuma said: “We’re working together really hard on this game. 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.”
Nintendo Direct news Feb 2021
Aonuma also said that younger members of the sequel’s development team haddrawn inspiration from Red Dead Redemption 2, while Fujibayashi was playing Skyrim during the creation of the original Breath of the Wild.
An abundance of ideas for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild DLC resulted in Nintendo opting to develop a full-blown sequel rather than continuing to add to the original game, Aonuma toldKotakuin 2019.
“When we released the DLC for Breath of the Wild, we realized that this is a great way to add more elements to the same world,” he said. “But when it comes down to technical things, DLC is pretty much data—you’re adding data to a preexisting title. And so when we wanted to add bigger changes, DLC is not enough, and that’s why we thought maybe a sequel would be a good fit.”
