Just a few weeks ago, the famous honcho of The legend of Zelda the series, Eiji Aonuma, announced that the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be delayed until the spring of 2023. It was an announcement that many of us had undoubtedly expected, especially considering that 2022 is already hosting people such as. Bayonetta 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and the more recently announced Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, which is ready for the ‘Late-2022’ slot.
While we wiped a tear away from the corner of our eye and lamented that we would not be playing BOTW2 during the holidays this year, the announcement video itself showed some brand new footage from the upcoming sequel; in fact, so much so that we even put forward 16 theories about Links knotting new arm. What we may not have noticed at the time – something we had not considered before the men at Digital Foundry talked about it recently – was that the footage looks remarkably sharp for OG Switch hardware.
Now, game trailers running on slightly more powerful hardware are nothing new, but the Digital Foundry team believes there may be some weight behind the theory that Breath of the Wild 2 could come to brand new Switch hardware. Whether it’s a ‘new’ switch in line with the new 3DS, which offered a modest specification boost, or a variety of Switch ‘Pro’ or the real ‘Switch 2’ successor is impossible to say right now, but their main reason was that the volumetric clouds that are prominent in the trailer, according to their expert assessment, appear to be too advanced for the humble Switch’s processing power.
This along with the higher resolution and anti-aliasing techniques may indicate that the game is potentially a “cross-gen” release, similar to the last game. Digital Foundry video producer Alex Battaglia stated, “as they delay it now, I think this will be similar to what we saw with Breath of the Wild, where it launches on the old and also on the new, and we see the good ones. benefits of the new. ”You can watch the team discuss the clip in the DF video here:
Here at Nintendo Life, we’re a little more skeptical, although of course we love the idea of a brand new toy to play with. The idea of a new Switch console to be released with Breath of the Wild 2 in 2023 is not quite of the table, but since the OLED model is only six months old at the time of writing, it seems unlikely that Nintendo will introduce another SKU to the market so soon. After all, since the original Switch is now over five years old, there are plenty of early adopters who see the OLED model as a decent upgrade worth picking up. That Nintendo comes out a little more than a year later and says “Oops, sorry guys, this is it genuine upgrade“feels a bit premature, especially considering how healthy Switch sales are.
Then again, it is possible that Nintendo can go a whole other way: primarily a new dock that upgrades the resolution when playing on the big screen. Since OLED introduced a significant upgrade for people who predominantly enjoy handheld gaming, a new dock would benefit resolution-seeking gamers who prefer to play in docked mode. This can give the ‘native’ output resolution a big bump via some built-in scaling technology – maybe even go as far as 4K (though we’ve already seen different pieces of sets do that). So again, these would mean that you have to spend for these processes, which are not entirely explained by the volumetric clouds.
Ultimately, Breath of the Wild 2 is sure to run fine on the current Switch; it a little have to, no? The first game was perfectly playable and excellent on the Wii U, and even the Switch version is struggling in some places (hello, Korok Forest!). There is simply no way Nintendo will abandon a console that – at the time of writing – has now sold over 100 million units, which is more than the mighty Wii. The first Breath of the Wild has sold about one copy for every four Switches in the wild right now, and Nntendo is not going to disappoint that audience for the sake of a little more advanced graphics.
What about a potential release across genes? Well, even given the persistent difficulties that manufacturers are facing right now, it is certainly possible, but we are not yet completely convinced. It just does not seem like the right time for us, especially when you consider that global chip shortages are likely to continue into 2023. We would not put it past Nintendo to offer some sort of upgrade / remaster of the game further down the line though ; maybe some sort of collection that brings together both Breath of the Wild games for its next console? We would be ready for that!
The real question is whether Switch owners would be tempted to upgrade to new Switch hardware if this was a cross-platform release (of course across Nintendo platforms), because that’s what Nintendo would bet on by to use the same tactics that were used with both. Twilight Princess on GameCube / Wii and BOTW on Wii U / Switch.
Would we upgrade? Of course we would, but new Nintendo hardware is attached to our job here, so it’s easier for us to justify. Ville you however upgrade? …
So we are not sure we will see a brand new Switch console released along with Breath of the Wild 2, but we would love to know what you think about the subject. Check out the polls below and be sure to leave a comment with your thoughts on the matter!