Nintendo has just released more footage of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in the wake of their Nintendo Switch announcement.
On the Breath of the Wild website, two new videos have become available. When viewing on the website, you can switch between the videos without interrupting the music. Interestingly, it seems there is a third video related to these two that is only available as the website’s background, but can be found on YouTube with the other videos’ YouTube-hosted versions. All three videos, with our analysis, are below.
The first video, “In This World.”, starts out with footage we’ve seen from E3, although it draws particular emphasis to the petrified remains of the robot/alien/entities we’ve seen before, and allows us a glimpse into the shrine– and the goddess statue at its back. After this, we get exploration: Link climbs a tree, strips his shirt and dives into a lily pond, uses what appears to be a Deku Leaf to blow his raft (which ties Breath of the Wild into the Windwaker “Link is successful in Ocarina of Time and stays as an adult” timeline), etc. (It’s worth noting he seems to be able to scramble up any surface, even if he slips while grabbing it.) We see him chasing a frog, dodging a skeleton that climbs out of the ground as lightning strikes in the distance, and then… elaborate rising from the ground, glowing with the same blue as the entities. Link uses his glider from a volcanic cliff and later while snowboarding, and the rest of the video is mostly sights we’ve seen– though impressive ones.
The second video, “In This Era.”, begins with a survival lilt: Hunting boars, spear-fishing, chopping down birches, humming over a broiling stew. It then moves into combat with bokoblins, mostly things we’ve seen before: Crushing them with rolling boulders, headshots with the arrow (which seem to be indicated successful by a charming chime), dropping bombs and flammables, and perfect dodges leading to slow-mo combos, alighting a club for extra damage, running shots of explosive arrows, glider drop-attacks, and bombing a stone boss that appears from unassuming environment. It’s worth noting here that the Breath of the Wild soundtrack is epic and wrought, bringing to mind Studio Ghibli soundtracks for Princess Mononoke and Castle in the Sky.
The final Breath of the Wild video, whose title translates simply to “site TOP video”, starts with a musicless time-lapse of ruins in a field and the mountains behind (which include a spired castle and volcano), as a sunny day watches a storm come in; lighting strikes, rain comes down torrentially, and then it clears into a sunny drizzle. Birds chirp as clouds roll by, darkening the sky and then letting the sun through again. At a length of 4:22, and without words, new shots, or music, it’s the least informational video, but it’s a gorgeous and calming watch. (Careful observers may observe what appears to be a fire in the middle-right of the screen in certain shots, but the fire doesn’t spread.)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will release on Wii U and Nintendo Switch in 2017.