These trailers have been good so far, the new physics engine stuff is wild and fascinating. I cannot wait to explore how much nonsense I can combine and what happens when my arrow fuses with a steak. However, this newest trailer is just the HYPEST SHIT and I am feeling gamer joy in ways I rarely do at my crusty cynical age allows. Thoughts?
I like the little robot chopping down a tree, personally.
(Also in a month this will dominate all our lives, so let’s discuss further.)
Man, this game looks so freaking cool. Sky islands are dope, Link’s hockey flow hair style is on-point, and they just went ahead and shoved in 2008’s GotY, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, in it for good measure.
I put a preorder down at my local game shop and they are planning to have their first midnight launch in years for this. I cannot wait.
Breath of the Wild never spoke to me but people are talking about this in the same breathless tones they reserve for like, the new FromSoft joint, so there’s part of me that’s curious regardless.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted from a BOTW sequel. A new map, some new skills and plenty of dungeons would surely be fun. But not exciting!
Fusing weapons and crafts is exciting. Can’t wait to dive into it!
I am not as hyped on the current trailer as many. Now to be clear: I’m pretty excited for TOTK, but the recent longer gameplay demonstration did way more to alleviate my concerns around “so what actually is this sequel?” than today’s trailer. The way BOTW allowed systems to interact, and the way TOTK seems to be massively expanding the toolbox of what and how things can interact and be connected, is really promising (and to this trailer’s credit, it does feature some cool new examples of that).
Maybe my hype is just being deflated by exposure to the English language voice direction again. With no ill will at the folks doing the acting, I’d forgotten that I cannot stand the English voice overs from BOTW and it sounds like TOTK is bringing back the exact same style. BOTW had a language pack on Switch to get rid of it, so I’m going to be supremely disappointed if TOTK doesn’t feature the same (esp. at launch).
I still find it weird when anyone speaks English, or any real language, in a Zelda game regardless of the voice acting quality becaise I want them to speak exclusively in a variety of grunts and ya-ha-has. But it only happened occasionally in BOTW, hopefully that’s true of TOTK too.
But I’m just happy to see Ganondorf again. I adore Ganondorf and get disappointed when we go too many Zelda ganes in a row with only pig Ganon and some miscellaneous evil wizards and such. Also, Sidon is back! Love to see a non-triforce character return, he rocked in BOTW.
I wish they all spoke in Animal Crossing gibberish so that way I could name my guy “Blue” like I did for my entire life until 2017.
I have no reason to doubt that the gameplay of this game will be fantastic. I really liked BOTW, so I will probably really like this one, as it game seems similar enough to it with added and polished mechanics (and hopefully real Dungeons).
If I have concerns regarding this game, they pertain to the story and I’ve had them ever since they announced this as a direct sequel to BOTW, taking place on largely the same map shortly after the end of that game.
So, let me put on my lefty speculative amateur media critic hat and be a bit annoying for a second:
My major (so far mostly unfounded, I admit) fear for the story of TOTK is that at the end of the game, the Kingdom of Hyrule that was destroyed by Ganon a hundred years ago is going to be reinstated (or at least beginning to be reinstated). This would be classic, simple Nintendo storytelling, as their big franchises have, for decades, fared well with the formula of: Bad Guy does bad stuff → hero defeats bad guy → stuff goes away → everyone’s happy, thankful and goes back to their lives → the end. It is simple, yet engaging and therefore mostly works.
This time though, this well-trodden formula would backfire badly imo. Nintendo decided to not only have Ganon attack the kingdom of Hyrule and have Link rescue it. No, they decided to have Link fail at his task and Ganon be almost victorious, if it wasn’t for some convenient Zelda magic to keep him at bay for a hundred years. Enough time for Link to recover and come back to finish the job. In the process of that war though, as BOTW clearly explains, the kingdom of Hyrule was destroyed, the King himself, as well as everyone around him ended up dead (or “ghostified”) and the princess, trapped beyond a magic barrier, was impossible to reach. The kingdom of Hyrule ceased to exist.
Yet, life went on and the game wouldn’t have been called Breath of the Wild and designed to be the way it is, if Nintendo didn’t want to evoke the image of a somewhat idyllic, post-post apocalyptic Hyrule full of new thriving communities that seem to enjoy life and the world they live in. Sure, there are the occasional Ganon-monsters roaming around, but until the start of the game, they weren’t that big of a problem and even then, people seem to be able to deal with them just fine.
The game is quick to remind you that lurking in the background of this idyllic land is the ticking time-bomb of Ganon that threatens to return, if Link doesn’t destroy/seal/whatever him for good. The game ends with Ganon indeed being defeated and Zelda freed, but we don’t get to see what anyone does afterwards.
Then this direct sequel, TOTK, got announced and it quickly became clear that though Ganon was defeated, Ganondorf was (as usual) still around/back at it again and that the big overarching evil of that universe, hadn’t been vanquished after all, which will be the task for Link and Zelda this time around. That begs the question: what will happen to this new Hyrule and its people in the process? This time Ganondorf can’t destroy the kingdom of Hyrule. The kingdom of Hyrule doesn’t exist. Hard to destroy or take over what doesn’t exist.
“Do not look away. You witness a king’s revival and the birth of his new world.” - Ganondorf in the new trailer.
Where there exists a kingdom, there should exist a king. And where there exists a king, but no kingdom, it will have to be created. This appears to be a logical part of Ganondorf’s goal. Of course, in the face of such evil, the communities of Hyrule will need to unite and aid Link and Zelda in their heroic quest to defeat him, his empowered corrupted minions and his 'kingdom of evil" and then…then…then what? The quest is finally fulfilled, Ganon/Ganondorf has been vanquished, his evil minions are gone. Peace returns to Hyrule and its communities…or does it? Do Link and Zelda (who has long been liberated from being a princess) ride into the sunset and have fun adventures together, or will they strive to replace Ganondorf’s ‘kingdom of "evil’ with their ‘kingdom of good’. Will Nintendo succumb to their tropes and end up accidentally writing something deeply reactionary, or will they break out of them and be a bit ambitious? I guess we will find out next month.
Is it confirmed that this is a chronological sequel? This trailer gives me some prequel vibes… the fact that there’s seemingly a lot of people & the trailer shows so many things crumbling has me going 
Nintendo is so cagey with details I don’t think anything is “confirmed”, but the trailers feature several characters who only appeared in the ‘present’ of BOTW like an adult Prince Sidon.
That said, it’s very possible that some of the scenes shown are more flashbacks/memories from 100 years ago, a la BOTW. Or that there is a new narrative gimmick with a similar mechanical function of showing the world from outside Link’s current perspective that is letting them pull scenes into the trailer that throw off the vibe of when it’s set or what is happening.
