Breath of the Wild's Sequel - E3 2021 Trailer Analysis / Breakdown

[Music] so two years of almost complete radio silence has come to an end and we've finally got another look at breath of the wild's upcoming sequel including a tentative release year 2022 while the trailer is only just under two minutes long there's a whole lot to unpack here so before we get into discussing what this could mean let's run through the entire trailer and break it down shot by shot the trailer begins with malice the energy of calamity ganon rising slowly in a similar fashion to how the green energy moved in the game's initial trailer as the malice rises we cut to a few different shots first we see link with his right arm apparently attacked by malice he's wearing the same tunic as he was in the initial trailer and wields the master sword meaning that this likely takes place at the same time as the first look of the game however this is the only time we see the blade of evil's bane in the entire trailer and it's not looking in a good way here perhaps the malus attacking link somehow damages the sword or even breaks it entirely explaining its absence in the rest of the trailer after cutting back to the malice we see the corpse-like figure from the reveal a figure who's most likely ganondorf judging by the red hair and gerudo emblems on his person at first i thought he was falling but instead it looks more like he simply raises his arms perhaps controlling the malice interestingly he doesn't feature a chest wound as many people myself included theorized based on the original trailer we can see more clearly however the holes in the palms of his hands as well as ones on his chest after another shot of malice we see zelda falling into a huge chasm in the initial trailer we saw ganondorf's awakening cause a cave-in huge rocks fall from the ceiling shattering the ground where link and zelda stand later on in this original trailer we see link's hand catching zelda and later the strange green hand catch link which could be what's about to happen in this scene after the trailer cuts to black we see a light which parallels the light which we see at the beginning of breath of the wild next we see links skydiving through the clouds obviously there's a parallel to skyward sword but there's a lot more interesting details to unpack first link himself he seems to have longer hair than we've seen before indicating that this takes place quite some time after the events in the caves he's wearing a green shoulder garb a skirt and high sandals and most interestingly his right arms looking a little different to usual which we'll get back to later link's longer hair coupled with a green clothing have obvious connections to the heroes seen in the tapestry from 10 000 years ago when the calamity was last sealed whether there's a connection here some sort of time travel or cyclical history remains to be seen below link we can see islands floating in the sky we can see smaller connected islands with trees paths and small shrine-like structures and higher up a huge structure peeks out from the clouds following this we see a shot of link paragliding the glider itself looks to be the same one used in breath of the wild although interestingly it now features two streamers trailing behind concept art for breath of the wild shows that they considered using these streamers in the original game where they'd help to indicate the direction of the wind as it seems that we'll be gliding between floating islands in this sequel perhaps the inclusion of these streamers means that we'll have to take wind direction into account when paragliding similar to how the deku leaf works in the wind waker link's appearance is somewhat different here to when he's skydiving he's wearing large boots and trousers instead of the sandals but still wears the green shoulder garb he wears a new shield on his back featuring a design that looks somewhat similar to the sheikah eye symbol in the background we can see more of the floating islands which are notably at different altitudes perhaps working out how to access higher islands will be part of the game's overworld puzzles or perhaps we'll simply do it using an ability which we see later on in the trailer on the right we get a better look at what's most likely the same large structure seen in the skydiving shot which appears to be a huge stone tower perhaps a dungeon after this we get an absolutely gorgeous shot of link running on one of these floating islands wearing the same outfit as he was on the previous shot as he runs three birds startle and fly away up above we can see more islands though from below we can't really see much about what's on them directly in front of link though there's a structure reminiscent of a japanese torii gates found at shinto shrines which normally symbolize the transition from the mundane to the sacred meaning the structures that are built on these islands are probably somewhat sacred next we see perhaps what is one of the game's bosses a stone golem the top half lowers onto a base structure connected by rings and what appears to be the same green energy from the original trailer meaning that whatever this thing is it's connected in some way to the cave below hyrule and the spectral hand the top half of the golem looks somewhat like a frog though features a single large eye design in the center and has two egg-like structures on its shoulders below this hang two decorative symbols which looks somewhat like inverted chica eyes the base of the golem again shows this green blue energy in a circular design in the center interestingly accompanied by a symbol of what looks like a broomstick breath of the wild of course took many of zelda's older enemies and reimagined them like the heinox and lionel so it's possible that this too will be a re-imagined form of some classic enemy the single cyclopian eye and the fact that it appears to be made of some sort of stone or metal is reminiscent of an igor a recurring classic zelda enemy but it could just as easily be unique to this game in the background we get a closer look at one of the shrine-like structures indicating that this golem appears on one of the sky islands behind the construct are pillars both topped with the same egg-shaped structures found on its shoulders meaning that this most likely isn't a creation of ganondorf or some other evil but a guardian of this sky temple next link paraglides past what looks like a regular bakoblin encampment until it rises from the ground and is revealed to be built on the back of a stone talus each bokoblin wields a bow so this will most likely be a lot more challenging than a regular talus as we'll have to avoid arrows while we take it down or snipe the bokoblins first interestingly the begoblins all have far longer horns than in the original game perhaps indicating that they're more powerful or that there's a different enemy progression system this time around there's not too much else to note here except that this could mean that we'll see more of these types of remixed enemies from the original link looks a lot more familiar here than he did in the skies he's wearing the same tunic that he did in the caves here we see link lying on the floor as green energy is absorbed into his right arm not unlike what we saw in the first trailer however this isn't the same scene link is wearing different trousers and appears to be shirtless which he wasn't in the first trailer the ground is covered in strange markings reminiscent of the glyphs that appeared in the green energy next we're back in familia old hyrule and from the looks of it we're somewhere around death mountain link runs up a hill towards a camp populated by the goblins and moblins who again look a little different this time around the pokoblins still have strange new horns this blue becoblin even wears rings on his the moblin seems to either be wearing a small helmet or has an even stranger new horn but this obviously isn't the most important detail of this shot link seems to be able to reverse time and send a spiked ball rolling back up the hill to take out the enemies at first i assumed this was a sort of new stasis a sheikah slate rune but link doesn't have the slate on him in this shot instead he holds out his right hand the back of which glows with a golden light if you've played almost any other zelda game you'll know that a glow from the back of link's sword-wielding hand usually depicts the triforce of courage and the golden light which appears to envelop the spiked ball would support the idea that this power has something to do with a triforce it's notably similar to zelda's sealing power in breath of the wild where the triforce appears on the back of her hand and she's able to eradicate dark beast ganon in an explosion of golden light whether this new ability of links is related to zelda's sealing power and the triforce isn't clear but it's a very strong possibility link's hand appears to be in its new corrupted state here that was harder to tell here than in the sky shots where his entire arm is exposed following this we see link again in the same outfit in combat with a strange enemy clung to the ceiling of a cave it's reminiscent of a lever another classic zelda enemy though not usually one found clinging to surfaces we get a closer look at his right arm where it's clear that it has been altered by the green energy by this point but more interestingly his left arm carries a shield a shield which features a huge stone dragon head almost identical to the dragon heads found in zonai ruins the dragon head seems to function brilliantly as a flamethrower link unleashes a torrent of fire at the enemy which retaliates by lunging at the hero who's forced to backflip to avoid damage as he does we see that the dragon is lit up by this mysterious green energy when link lands the dragon appears to rotate link barely moves his arm but the head turns by itself surrounding link and the enemy are ruins behind the monster are small stone steps not unlike those found at the springs in breath of the wild but when the fire lights up the cavern we can see green markings on the stone next to link which match with the markings on the structures on the sky islands next we see another new ability a green puddle shrinks into a single droplets which rises upwards and then we see link in a diving pose leaping skyward he's surrounded by green energy and his right arm is glowing brightly which makes me think that this is an ability controlled by the arm's magic link collides with the bottom of a floating island but this doesn't stop him he's able to move through the stone to the surface on the other side leaping out of a puddle similar to the one on the ground it's possible that this initial puddle is on hyrule's surface and that the following jump is a way to access the sky from down below here we have perhaps the best shot we see of the floating islands which don't appear to be too far above hyrule at this point below link we can see the trees of the ceres scablands an area of hyrule littered with trees resembling the real world dragonblood tree which also featured the thundra plateau a structure which is obviously zonai in origin we get a close look at one of the island's shrine structures again we see pillars topped with egg-shaped decorations the trailer ends in much the same way that the first did hyrul castle rises ominously from the ground this time we get a closer look the castle in the same derelict state as it was in breath of the wild is forced skyward by huge tendrils of blood-red malice causing entire towers to fall from the citadel the final shot is one of the castle floating above a haze of malice as the sun sets on hyrule so there's a lot in a two minute trailer of course the biggest takeaways from the new trailer are the much theorized inclusion of abilities using link's new arm a concept which was considered for the original game and the appearance of floating islands in the skies there seems to be a huge difference between the shots on the surface where link looks familiar and the shots in the skies where link has much longer hair and a different attire it's possible that there'll be some sort of time jump or time travel in the sequel especially considering link's new appearance's connection to the hero from the tapestry but we don't know enough yet to make this connection the sky islands obviously weren't present in the skies during breath of the wild which begs the question where did they come from a strong possibility is that they were always there somewhere above hyrule but were obscured by what's known as the cloud barrier a sacred divider created by the goddess hylia long before skyward sword which helped separate skyloft and its surrounding islands from the surface below there's evidence that this barrier existed even during breath of the wild as we can see the dragons appear to vanish through a portal in the clouds another notable feature of the sky islands are their similarity to the zonai ruins found on the surface the zonai ruins were left behind by a mysterious powerful race of people who vanished suddenly long before breath of the wild seeing these sky islands with similar structures it's possible that the zonai weren't wiped out but instead left hyrule for the skies above an idea shared by the wind tribe in the minish cap it's suggested that the zonai worshiped the dragons for rosh in particular so perhaps the enigmatic tribe followed the dragons above the cloud barrier and made their homes in the skies this analysis video was just by initial thoughts and breakdown of the new trailer so stick around on the channel for more theories and other breath of the wild 2 content later on in the week i'm so happy that we've finally seen more of this game i absolutely love what we've seen so far 2022 can't come soon enough cheers guys and i'll see you next time

Channel: Zeltik

Views: 831,888

Rating: 4.9697251 out of 5

Keywords: Zelda

Id: 1Ub2UyoZNzM

Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 15 2021