Breath Of The Wild 2 Will Launch On Nintendo Switch 2, Claim Experts

As Nintendo prepares to take our "breath" away with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, you might want to start saving for more than just the game itself. Although we've all heard those fanciful rumours of a Nintendo Switch 2 and largely written them off, they're back... with a vengeance.

It's already been five years (and counting) since Breath of the Wild became a flagship Switch game and helped the console become the best-selling hardware year after year. Much like how all eyes are on Sony's God of War Ragnarok to continue the legacy left behind by its predecessor, there's a lot riding on BOTW2. 

Will Breath Of The Wild 2 Launch On The Switch 2?

Despite an imminent release, things have gone quiet on Breath of the Wild 2. Nintendo has shown off a suitably glossy trailer to set tongues wagging, while a rumoured subtitle for Breath of Duality has the rumour mill going into overdrive that we'll be able to play alongside Link as either Princess Zelda or even Ganon. Still, news that the AAA title won't launch in 2022 means we're left on tenterhooks for now.

Speaking of the BOTW2 trailer, it's got some industry insiders thinking it's almost too good to be true - suggesting the next entry is hiding a pretty major secret. Could Breath of the Wild 2 really be a cross-gen release for the classic Switch and its mythical bigger brother? Over at Digital Foundry (via GamesRadar), Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Alex Battaglia put the latest gameplay footage under the microscope and concluded it looks too powerful to run on the 2017 version of the Switch.

Here, Linneman explained: "This trailer was interesting because the image quality seemed quite good, I think. I was a little bit surprised by how sharp and clear this looked compared to the original in general." Battaglia then pointed to "volumetric clouds" and said that the "anti-aliasing cuts" are something even the Xbox Series X would struggle to work with. As a final nod, remember that the OG Breath of the Wild was developed as a Wii U game before making the leap.

Is The Switch 2 Just Around The Corner?

All three agreed that Nintendo could've enhanced the footage for the trailer, but said it's very unlike the developer to render trailers at a higher quality than what can be delivered in-game. Finally, previous entries like Twilight Princess have been developed as cross-gen releases, so who knows? Leadbeater concluded: "I'm really looking forward to this game, and obviously, there is the spectre of a new version of the Switch coming out, which likely would run the game exactly as it was seen there, if not better."

You might remember when no one was quite sure what was going on with Grand Theft Auto 6, and every week, there were fresh leaks or rumours. It was much the same with the Nintendo Switch Pro. Although it was a persistent rumour that was seemingly leaked by official Nintendo documents, many finally buried the idea when the Switch OLED was released. Even we'd given up on the idea of the Switch 2, but if Nintendo wants to continue its dominance of the market, a new-gen console to give Microsoft and Sony a run for their money sounds pretty damn tempting.