Zelda Breath of the Wild 2 Trailer Analysis and Sequel Theories Roundup

Nintendo showed off their latest glimpse of Breath of the Wild 2 at E3 2021, has introduced the game to the world at E3 2019. The trailer may have been short, but it’s packed full of interesting details. Today I’m going to go through everything we currently know about Breath of the Wild 2, plus roundup some of the speculations in the community since the trailer was shown off.

First of all, we have the trailer itself. It was the headline act of E3 2021 from Nintendo which showed off a little more detail and contrasted to the original trailer shown in 2019. The original trailer showed Link and Zelda traveling through a series of underground caves. While they are traveling it appears a corpse or remains of a body is being held captive or is under the control or influence of some kind of a severed arm.

Speculation at the moment is this is the remains of Ganondorf, however, we don’t know the details for sure. Link and Zelda continue their travels on a huge Elephant-like beast, but they continue on foot when they appear to not be able to get over a bridge. Link and Zelda come across the corpse, surrounded by a swirling, green power of some sort. There’s a quick cut at this point where we see some evil escaping from the corpse, Link gets grabbed by the ‘thing’ that appears to be trapping the supposed Ganondorf corpse and then it looks like Zelda falls down deep into the underground, perhaps splitting up the pair.

That was our first taste of Breath of the Wild 2 back in 2019, and now fast-forward to 2021 where we got much more than that, plus a little gameplay.

In the new trailer we open with Link once again getting grabbed by a black and red ‘thing’, it looks like some kind of corruption indicated by the black and red. We see the corpse, who could be Ganondorf raising his hands into the air, once again alive and kicking followed by a reminder of Zelda falling into the depths of the underground. The tone then dramatically changes as we see Link falling from the sky, he’s way up there in the sky and appears to be freefalling down to Hyrule below. Link then is seen riding his glider safely down to the ground.

The first thing to notice here is the Link that’s falling from the sky appears to have a corrupted right arm, whereas the Link with the Glider appears as per the original Breath of the Wild. It looks like there could be 2 Links in this game, perhaps similar to Ocarina of Time where we play as Young Link or Regular Link.

Next, we see Link running through Hyrule, long hair flowing, again with a corrupted arm. In the distance, we can see floating islands in the sky. This appears to be the theme for Breath of the Wild 2, with Hyrule dramatically changed from the first game and parts of Hyrule have floated up into the air. Given we see Link skydiving down from above, I am sure we’re going to be not only underground, as indicated by the first trailer, but we’re also going to be traveling high above Hyrule on the islands in the sky. This is very similar to Skyward Sword, and it may be one of the reasons Skyward Sword is being released again this year for Nintendo Switch. Perhaps the creators want us to understand the origins of the Zelda franchise before diving into Breath of the Wild 2.

Moving on we see Bokoblins on top of a Stone Talus, rising up from the ground. There’s a quick shot of what appears to be Link’s arm, glowing and covered in light. There is speculation that rather than the Sheika Slate, this time we’re going to be using Links arm, and perhaps it’s going to have different abilities and attachments. This harks back to some Breath of the Wild concept arm where we see an armless Link. It certainly makes sense to have some kind of ‘multitool’ we use, and the Sheika Slate made sense in the Wii U days, but it’s going to be interesting to see how this one evolves. We don’t know exactly what has happened to Link’s arm, but we know something is going on here.

Next up in the trailer we see Link wielding some new powers. A spikey ball is falling down a hill towards him, and it looks like Link can either turn back time or use some kind of kinetic power to push the spikey ball back up the hill. A rewind time mechanic would be very cool, and this opens up a lot of possibilities for puzzles in the game. We’re not yet clear on whether full-blown Dungeons are going to return to the Sequel to Breath of the Wild just yet, but this was a huge part of the feedback since the original came out in 2017… fans want to see the return of the larger dungeons rather than the smaller shrines.

We also see Link wielding what looks to be a flame thrower, but this is on his other arm when comparing it to the corrupted arm. Link then does a neat little backflip to evade an enemy he’s fighting. Link also then appears to travel through concrete via a water-like ability. It’s unclear as to what is happening here, but it looks like Link is once again reversing time, as the water droplet goes up rather than down, and then Link travels through solid stone, arriving high above Hyrule in the clouds. It’s all very mysterious, and we’re likely to hear a lot more about this soon.

In the final scene, we see castle Hyrule shaking and rumbling against the backdrop of dramatic music, and then it raises itself into the sky. There clearly is an event that leads to this, whether it’s the discovery of the Ganondorf-like corpse underground, or the corruption escaping and affecting Hyrule is some way. The latest trailer closes with the castle in the sky, Zelda’s lullaby playing in the background against a beautiful sunset over Hyrule and fades to black with the number 2022 left on the screen.

We were hoping we’d get more of a firm release date, but there’s plenty of details in the trailer here, and more everytime I watch it.

Fan theories have been swirling since the release of the first trailer, but now we have another one then the theories have really ramped up. Let’s go over the most common ones.

Can we play as Zelda in Breath of the Wild 2?

Since the first trailer fans were hoping for some kind of co-op play with Link in Breath of the Wild 2. Since the second trailer came out, it appears as if Link and Zelda get separated. Zelda looks like she falls down to the depths. It could be Link and Zelda are split up, and we have to play as both of them to hopefully meet up later in the game. Perhaps the Zelda sections are underground, whereas the Link sections are above ground on Hyrule or in the Sky Islands.

Can we play as Ganon in Breath of the Wild 2?

There’s something up with Link in the trailers, one looks like Link from Breath of the Wild and another looks like he has long hair, plus the corrupted arm. Since the first trailer came out theories about Ganon being the corpse releasing the corruption have been going around, but fans have taken that a step further and think perhaps one of the Links we see isn’t actually Link, but a young Ganon. There are similarities between the shoulder tunic from the character in the trailer, to the one on the corpse – plus we never actually see Link’s face in the trailer.

There are a few clues in the lore of Breath of the Wild also, for example in the tapestry we see a hero saving Hyrule from calamity 10,000 years ago, before the events of Breath of the Wild. The hero saving the world has similarities to the ‘corpse Ganon’ seen in the first trailer. Personally, I am unsure about this one given Ganon is the only male Gerudo. But time will tell and it would be a massive surprise.

Can we control time in Breath of the Wild 2?

There’s a couple of moments in the latest trailer where we see Link potentially controlling time, including pushing a spikey ball back up a hill, and also the strange water-like traversal where he goes upwards and appears to travel through solid rock.

Is there a connection to Skyward Sword?

The second trailer for Breath of the Wild 2 looks very similar to the gameplay found in Skyward Sword, where Link travels between islands in the sky called Skyloft. One of the main shots in the new trailer is Link skydiving from above down towards Hyrule. This suggests were going to be spending plenty of time in the sky islands, and perhaps we’ll return to Skyloft found in Skyward Sword.

It’s also interesting that this summer Skyward Sword is getting the HD remaster treatment for Nintendo Switch (coming out on July 16th, 2021). Perhaps Nintendo wants us to brush up on Skyward Sword before going into Breath of the Wild 2. Skyward Sword is an underrated Zelda game, with some great dungeon design. The game did have a whole load of bloat though, especially the start of the game which turned off many fans.

What’s up with Link’s Arm?

There appears to be a couple of Link’s in the trailer and one of them appears to have a corrupted right arm. In the first trailer, we see the corruption attaching itself to Link when they come across the so-called Ganon Corpse. It could be that Link’s abilities are somehow connected to his arm. Rather than use the Sheika Slate for physics and puzzle-solving mechanics, perhaps we use Link’s arm. Also, it’s interesting to see Link use a flame thrower in the trailer, although this is connected to his left arm rather than his right one. It’s worth taking note of Nintendo’s concept art which they showed off during a talk at GDC which shows different arm attachments for Link including a bomb-throwing device, hammer, and bow & arrow.

The new trailer was cut together brilliantly, and it looks like Nintendo want fans to speculate about what’s going to be in Breath of the Wild. It’d be great to hear what you think either comment down below your theories or get in contact through patreon.com/thisweekinvideogames and I’ll read them out on the podcast.

That’s it for this Breath of the Wild 2 Trailer Analysis and Sequel-Theories Roundup. For more Breath of the Wild 2 content like this check out This Week In Video Games on YouTube and subscribe today.