The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 has been delayed to 2023.
Nintendo was previously planning to release the long-awaited sequel this year, but Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma announced in a newly published video that the company has "decided to extend our development time a bit" and push the game to spring 2023.
Aonuma teased "an even wider variety of features … including new encounters and new gameplay elements." It seems the game was delayed to give these features, some of which may be tied to the partially destroyed Master Sword shown in the background footage of today's announcement, more time to fully develop.
"In order to make this game's experience something special, the entire development is continuing to work diligently on this game, so please wait a while longer," Aonuma concluded.
As recently as last month, Nintendo appeared confident in bringing Breath of the Wild 2 to Switch later this year. With The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom now targeting spring 2023, it could arrive as early as the final week of March 2023 or as late as the end of next June. We still don't have specifics to work with, but assuming it was originally planned for a holiday 2022 launch, this represents a four- to six-month delay. In any case, Breath of the Wild 2 is now at least a year away.
