'The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom' Will Release in Mid-2023

The vastly open world of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of the first experiences players had on the Nintendo Switch. The game easily takes over 100 hours to complete fully, and despite being released in 2017, the title has still held the attention of gamers new and old.

Nintendo announced in 2019 it was making a sequel to the beloved game. What is the current release date for Breath of the Wild 2?

Though the game was announced in mid-2019, Nintendo continuously left the release date vague, initially promising sometime in 2022. The company later announced that Breath of the Wild 2's release would be delayed even further, into early 2023.

During the September Nintendo Direct, Nintendo unveiled that the sequel, officially titled The Legends of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, will be released on May 12, 2023.

"We previously announced that we were aiming for a 2022 release for this game, however, we have decided to extend our development time a bit and change the release to Spring 2023," series producer Eiji Aonuma said in a video posted to YouTube on March 29. “For those of you who have been looking forward to a release this year, we apologize."

The video provided more sneak peeks at the upcoming game than before. In the teaser, Link takes to the sky, moving between different landmasses floating among the clouds, and pulls out an unusual-looking Master Sword, suggesting the well-known weapon will be getting a makeover in the new installment.

With the new trailer unveiled in September, we saw even more shots of Link jumping through the air, using what is presumed to be new Sheikah Slate powers to navigate the terrain.

"As previously announced, the adventure in this sequel will take place not just on the ground as in the previous game, but also in the skies above," Eiji continued. "However, the expanded world goes beyond that, and there will be an even wider variety of features you can enjoy, including new encounters and gameplay elements. In order to make this game’s experience something special, the entire development team is continuing to work diligently on this game, so please wait a while longer.”

Beyond the little peeks at the game that Nintendo has given us, there are few other details on the title's contents. So as not to reveal any unnecessary spoilers, for a time Nintendo also kept the game's title a secret until the September Direct presentation.

"As for why we’re holding back on the name, you’ll just have to stay tuned because, obviously, Zelda names are kind of important,” Nintendo Treehouse’s Bill Trinen told IGN. “Those subtitles … they start to give little bits of hints about maybe what’s going to happen.”

While the game now won't be released until mid-2023, players have more information to begin piecing together the game's lore with the announcement of the title.