Breath of the Wild sequel release date announced, fans speculate time travel

We finally have a name for the sequel of Nintendo's acclaimed open-world game: Tears of the Kingdom.

In a Nintendo Direct livestream yesterday (Sept 13), a new trailer for Breath of the Wild's (BotW) sequel was released, alongside a new release date for the game.

Titled The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, this BotW sequel is expected to release on May 12, 2023.

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Until then, fans have been left wondering what exactly this game will be about.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a open-world, role-playing action-adventure game that follows a Hyrule Knight, Link, as he attempts to save what's left of Hyrule Kingdom and his princess, Zelda, from the scourge that is Calamity Ganon.

BotW released in 2017 and the sequel to this much-loved Nintendo game has been long-awaited by fans globally.

While the plot of Tears of the Kingdom is still unclear, there have been hints dropped in trailers and in BotW's open world that have led many fans to speculate that time travel will be involved.

Many players would have noticed the ruins, ancient architecture and carvings that dot the map of Hyrule in BotW. They are created by an extinct civilisation known as the Zonai but little is explained about them and their history or impact in the story.

This could possibly change with Tears of the Kingdom as some fans have noted that the ouroboros in the game's logo and carvings in the trailer could be linked to the Zonai and their past.

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Additionally, the ouroboros — symbolic of cycles of life, death and rebirth — is inherently connected to the concept of time. Link also has new powers, including one of time-reversal as he climbs a falling rock after sending it soaring back up into the skies.

Worth mentioning also is the alleged accidental leak by Italian voice actor Pietro Ubaldi, who revealed that he voices Link's friend Daruk, and also Daruk's ancestor in Tears of the Kingdom, during an interview with Lega Hyrule earlier this year.

Although it's uncertain which ancestor he'll be playing and how far back in time this ancestor lived, this could be a hint towards time travel — or nothing at all, if Daruk and his ancestor exist only as spirits in Tears of the Kingdom.

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The title itself also holds significance for the plot, as was hinted at during a 2021 interview with IGN where Nintendo Treehouse's Bill Trinen explained why they were keeping the sequel's title under wraps.

"You'll just have to stay tuned because, obviously, Zelda names are kind of important," Trinen said to IGN. "Those subtitles… they start to give little bits of hints about maybe what's going to happen."

While it's still unclear what Tears of the Kingdom will encompass and whether it's an object like the Ocarina of Time or a concept like in BotW, time is likely an element of this new instalment in the Zelda series.

And when it comes to discussions about time, Link is no stranger to it.

In many other Zelda games like the Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker and Skyward Sword, time and travelling through it plays a key role in completing different Links' quests.

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khooyihang@asiaone.com