Nintendo Teased 'BotW 2' Dungeons, New Terrain in an Overlooked Job Listing

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild took the beloved Nintendo franchise to new heights with a Skyrim-scale map to fans could explore with Link. But the Switch title was relatively short on the dungeons when compared to the previous installment. But that might change with the eventual release of Breath of the Wild 2.

Nintendo recently revealed plans to expand the BotW 2 development team and potentially create a whole new map unlike anything we saw in the last Zelda game. Based on this news, a job listing for two designers from earlier this year seems to suggest the company is already staffing up with a specific focus on creating new “dungeons” and hidden bosses for the upcoming Zelda sequel.

Both job listings mention the creation of “field dungeons,” which could mean BotW 2 could be more of a dungeon crawler than the original.

The 2017 adventure game only came with five dungeons, which include the four Divine Beasts and Hyrule Castle for Link’s final battle against Calamity Ganon. The Final Trial and Trial of the Sword were added with the game’s two DLC packs, giving BotW a total of seven dungeons if gamers bought both expansions. But none of those matched the scope of some of the massive multi-level dungeons from previous games (like the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time, for example).

Other Legend of Zelda games had more linear storylines and were jam packed with expansive dungeons. Twilight Princess featured nine full dungeons plus two mini-dungeons, while Skyward Sword has seven in addition to three smaller ones.

However, BotW did come with 120 Shrines which served as quick-travel checkpoints that had to be unlocked by solving a few puzzles or beating mini-bosses. Since Shrines were such a pivotal part of the game, it’s unlikely Nintendo will ditch them in favor of larger dungeons.

In an interview with Kotaku during E3 2019, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma hinted at how BotW 2 could maintain the creative puzzle-solving of Shrines while also bringing back the sprawling dungeons that fans love.

“One thing we learned from Breath of the Wild is that when we focused on creating a dungeon that has multiple solutions, it turned into this great title,” he said. “That’s one thing I want to polish up and use for inspiration going forward.”

The E3 2019 BotW 2 trailer teased that Hyrlue will face a new cataclysmic event. In the short clip, Link and Zelda discover Ganondorf’s dried-up corpse as it’s being resurrected deep beneath Hyrule Castle. That suggests that the iconic castle will once again be the grounds for a pivotal showdown in the sequel.

BotW 2 might also pull from from past Legend of Zelda installments and have Hyrule be engulfed by a dark and twisted dimension, a lot like Twilight Princess, A Link Between Worlds, and Majora’s Mask. This potential plot might have Link traversing a corrupted Hyrule unrecognizable from the original game.

The much-anticipated sequel could take the challenges Link and Zelda will face to the next level.

Breath of the Wild 2 is currently under development and coming to the Nintendo Switch … eventually.