The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Breath of the Wild 2)
 

Here is the trailer, just released:



Which isn't actually the first trailer. There was this teaser, originally:



And this one only a year ago, promising and lying that it'd be released this year:



So it looks like... we keep all the overworld from Breath of the Wild, but now there's floaty castle things you can go up to? And clearly the latest Zelda gimmick is whatever is going on with Link's arm/hand.

Its almost as if we were deep into a pandemic and it hit the gaming industry as much as everything else.

True. Game developers couldn't go anywhere and basically had no choice but to work on the comput -- er... wait, what? That doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, I noticed that very dramatic phrasing as well. Who knew a team of developers separated and isolated in their homes were just as swift and efficient as a team in a working environment designed for game development with direct communication to one another.

I've seen some people claim the thing in the mural looks like either Majora's Mask or the Fused Shadows. My first thought was Kaepora Gaebora.

Yep. Teleconferencing, instant messaging, file sharing and communication haven't come any further since when we were kids. Definitely if they were in cubicles next to each other drawing and coding it would go much faster.

Well you would know with all the video games you've developed. Nintendo are just a bunch of mean liars... The f*cking audacity of some people.

Obviously not. Though humor me. How would COVID have hampered video game developments in any way that wouldn't have been self-inflictedly? As in, "go home to your awesome computers you have there since you are f***ing video game developers and absolutely do NOT work one moment on any games we need you to make (or maybe just drag your feet a little?) that we could easily cloud you in on while you continue to develop and please ignore any and all emails, phone calls and group teleconferences and chats! Because it's not like you could log your time and still get paid or anything."

Like, I've worked for the better part of 2 decades in an industry that absolutely came to a standstill during COVID. As in, no two ways about it... it exists or it doesn't if people are at home. Video game development? lmao... no, no. That's not one of them. I wish I was in that field to have filled out that year and a half doing that.

I say all of this, but I don't believe COVID had anything to do with the delays on this game. As they've admitted, it was supposed to be DLC #3 but they kept growing the idea. Between now and that trailer where they said "2022," I'm sure they just kept going, or their newly plugged in stuff required new refinement. I'm also not casting shade on Nintendo. They were initially overly ambitious. Which is rare to see of Nintendo for many years now. Generally speaking their modus operandi is just put out 1 new legacy series game every system, and anything else is a bonus and might take a bunch of years. At least, lately. In an age where systems last long beyond old models, they don't know what to do. They can't even get a hold on a proper virtual console, even now. OK, now I'm casting shade.

Except nothing can replace direct communication in a shared environment.
And in general, your argument sounds like it comes from someone who don't know how group work.

Different PCs, security concerns, no instant and effective means to communicate (and imagine that, instant messages do not replace real communications), longer process of checking which party did what and so on.

Believe what you want, it is a right of all sentient beings, but it is obvious that pandemic HAD impacted game development and not in a good way.
It is easy to call developers liars and whatnot, but in this case they had a point.

Given this is coming 6 years after Breath of the Wild, I expect a full huge game completely different than before. You got to hand it to Nintendo here, they could have quickly done a rehash of Breath of the Wild with some changes and gotten a sequel out in 2-3 years, but they took their time.

You guys should be glad it took them this long, this isn't Ubisoft.

For some people diamonds are too small.

Remember that Zelda is always known for being delayed for over more than a year, especially when they give a release year but no complete release date.

Not only are you exposing just how ignorant you are to the work culture of game development by trying to equate working at home to working inside an actual studio/work environment. But you just contradicted yourself by admitting that working from home can have "self-inflicted" consequences. Who knew people slack off when they're in their PJs 2 feet away from their bed, TV, toilet, and fridge...

Nobody here claimed that video game development was brought to a standstill. Progress was slowed down. This is an industry where getting together a trailer/demo for an event like E3 slows down development, which is why some developers don't even bother with it so they can get more time to work on the game. It's rare to see games in action during their early stages these days, which is why so many games get announced with CG trailers.

As for Zelda specifically, both things can be true. While they had admitted that they were pushing the game back to "make the world more impressive," by the time Tears of the Kingdom releases, it will have surpassed the amount of time it took them to make Breath of the Wild from scratch, which I highly doubt is 100% attributed to ambition. Yes, they initially conceptualized the game as DLC before they decided to make it its own game but that's not uncommon in the game industry.

Yeah cause every single employee working on the game were going to take home their computers from work

Thats cool i guess? I dont know what boosting your own ego has to do with something that you yourself just said you werent in

Also

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ev.../1100-6489425/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact...tware_releases

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsl...he-video-games

But yes, COVID had no effect on the gaming industry. We get it, you're upset they didnt deliver on the 2022 release date that you believed was happening.

To build on the Majora/Shadows thing, I heard people claim that this game will have something to do with Termina or the Twilight Realm... Which I assume means like... What? An optional mirror mode or something?

Not sure how Termina factors into it, but Twilight Princess has definitely been a source of inspiration for many theorists. The Master Sword in the logo for instance has a very similar pattern and color scheme to the Twilight Realm and the mysterious Zonai tribe from Breath of the Wild whose symbols have been present throughout Tears of the Kingdom's marketing not only have an identical backstory to the interlopers from Twilight Princess, but their swirl symbol can be spotted all over Twilight Realm architecture, Zant, and the Fused Shadow.

Even Lanayru, the water serpent spirit from Twilight Princess who tells Link the story of the interlopers is covered in the same swirl pattern and the Zonai are said to worship a water dragon. These same swirl symbols can also be spotted in the Lanayru region in Skyward Sword. The dragons in the logo for Tears of the Kingdom are also very reminiscent of the dragon statues seen all over the Faron region in Breath of the Wild where the Zonai Ruins can be found. These dragons can even be spotted on Ganondorf's collar in Twilight Princess.

The 7 tears around the mysterious mural figure in the trailer are likely representative of the 7 Sages, or in Breath of the Wild's case, the 7 Heroines. The 7 Sages usually represent the 7 races of Hyrule which in Breath of the Wild are the Hylians, Sheikah, Gerudo, Zoras, Gorons, Rito, and Koroks. However, Breath of the Wild, at least to my knowledge is the first game to acknowledge an 8th race, being the Zonai who were said to have mysteriously vanished much like how the interlopers were banished in Twilight Princess and the dark tribe of sorcerers who created the Majora's Mask, which itself shares similarities to the Fused Shadow. There's even an 8th Heroine statue which can be found separated from the other 7, as if it's been outcast, which is likely what happened to the Zonai tribe, interlopers, and dark sorcerers because they are quite possibly one in the same.

Adding even more fuel to this, is the shattered Twilight Mirror nearby Lurelin Village in Breath of the Wild, which is the closest village to the Zonai Ruins and itself has the same swirl marking on the side of its houses. The Twilight Mirror is what was used to seal the interlopers into the Twilight Realm, so for it to be nearby and shattered could indicate one of 2 things. Either they escaped the Twilight Mirror, made refuge nearby in Lurelin Village and migrated deeper into the Faron region and vanished or they were native to the Faron region, migrated closer to the beach in Lurelin Village and were banished to the Twilight Realm never to be seen again. Interestingly as well, It was discovered that Lurelin Village had a very identical layout to Outset Island from Wind Waker and Link's belt buckle and sword hilt from Wind Waker are also swirls.

The Zonai are clearly important to Tears of the Kingdom and with the game taking us back to the sky after they just remastered Skyward Sword, could indicate that the 2 are likely related in some way. We know the goddess Hylia took the Hylians to the sky to protect them from Demise in Skyward Sword, but not everyone came back down to the land below as we can see in games like The Minish Cap and Twilight Princess which both have an active civilization living in the sky. If the Zonai were interlopers, could this explain why Zant's garbs were very birdlike and why his face resembled that of an Oocca, who themselves are said to be descendants of the Loftwings.

The rabbit hole is endless, but it's definitely interesting to think about. I thought the series was gonna lose some of its intrigue after they revealed the timeline, but they somehow managed to keep people guessing and making connections after just 1 game and it's honestly been way more interesting than trying to piece together which game comes before which game.

Very hyped.

I wonder about more basic stuff. Like, can you walk up to any one of the shrines from BotW? Is there more now? Can you go in them? Does it really start you out with only 3 hearts again? Are weapons more durable now?

I thought they said a long time ago that the sequel wouldn't have shrines?

As for breakable weapons... that was a pretty annoying feature of BOTW tbh. It made sense for old weapons, but some of those weapons looked brand new and made no sense for them to break after 12 usages or so.

Yep, it's true. You got me there. Seasoned game developers at f***ing Nintendo in 2022 working on the latest Zelda game probably only have sh**ty computers in their homes, and of course they wouldn't have access to even the basic most file sharing and cloud software that's been readily available to the world for 15 years now. They're completely helpless to work on any games unless they take their work computers home, you're right. Hands are tied.

Upset? Is this some kind of feeble projection? No, I don't care. BotW2 is just another game I'll get, play for a few days and forget about for a year or two, probably.

No clue. But if so, what... do they just get re-absorbed into the earth? Or are they still around but you can't enter them anymore?

And you just know they heard the feedback about that. So... a compromise, maybe?