The new Zelda game finally has a real name. It’s Breath of the Wild.
Until now, we’ve just been calling it The Legend Zelda for Wii U and NX. During a streaming event this morning for the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show in Los Angeles, Nintendo revealed that Breath of the Wild is the title for the upcoming Wii U and NX game.
Zelda is scheduled to come out for Wii U and NX (Nintendo’s new system that launches next March) in 2017.
Getting an official name is a big day for every new console Zelda game. When Nintendo reveals them, it always refers to the new entry as simply The Legend of Zelda. The subtitle also gives us a clue about each game’s theme. The Wind Waker was about controlling wind, Twilight Princess had a darker tone, and Skyward Sword featured flying and blade-based motion controls.
Breath of the Wild alludes to its focus on the open wilderness, but that “breath” part could be alluding to some other aspect of the title that we don’t know yet.
A new gameplay trailer showed a much more open world than any Zelda game has ever had. It also showed off new gameplay mechanics like climbing, cooking, and physics-based world interactions. It had a cartoon-like aesthetic similar to The Wind Waker, one of the most loved entries in the series.