Rumor: Breath of the Wild Not Releasing in March, Better on Switch, More Difficult than E3 Demo

We just got our first real significant Breath of the Wild rumors since before E3 as we anticipate likely seeing a large chunk of the game yet again at the January 12th Nintendo Switch live event. This time around the rumors come from Emily Rogers, so if you’re still wary of her I can’t blame you. She did, afte rall, incorrectly state that Breath of the Wild would have gender options (she did state herself it was a rumor, rather than a fact). However, she has also gotten several Nintendo Switch details correct before it was unveiled. It’s important to note when interpreting her stuff how she presents things. Some things she states like a fact – showing 100% confidence, while other things are more rumor like in appearance, meaning she knows she might be wrong. These rumors fall into the latter category.

Enough about that though! Let’s dive straight into the juicy stuff. For starters, if you were expecting Breath of the Wild to launch alongside the Nintendo Switch, it appears that may not be happening. The game is supposedly having a lot of issues with localization, and part of the issues associated with it is that the game is “too ambitious”. That would seem to suggest this is the most text heavy game Nintendo’s teams have worked with (plus whatever voice acting is needed) if localization alone is that difficult. Apparently localization is not finished yet and won’t be until some point in December. To further the ambition of this project, here is what she claims one of her sources said:

“A very ambitious game, maybe even too much”

Because of these localization delays, the game has not been fully tested for quality yet. Given the sheer ambition of the game, insiders (reportedly) are saying the game will take anywhere from four to six months of quality testing before it can be declared ready for public consumption. If you’re keeping track – that means potentially they are still quality testing this game in June 2017, making a summer launch more likely (and it can’t be put past them to delay the game to a more favorable holiday 2017 period).

That’s it for the “bad news” (Nintendo has never stated anything other than 2017 for the game, so this isn’t technically an official delay).

Emily Rogers also claims to have heard whispers that Breath of the Wild runs smoother on the Switch than the Wii U – an expected result when you’re working with better hardware. She also claims she heard the E3 2016 demo for the game (the only demo that has been playable publicly anywhere, even to this day) had its difficulty toned down a bit to encourage more exploration. This in theory makes some sense, given the limited time you get to play the game. You certainly wouldn’t get very far if you were dealing with more frequent or more difficult encounters. Thus, the final game will be harder than what was at E3, Rogers claims.

As always, take all of this information with a grain of salt. Even if localization isn’t finished yet, they could already be doing quality testing on the Japanese version, cutting down on a lot of the post translation testing needed. Reality is that we just don’t know. Still, I would not be surprised to see Breath of the Wild not there at launch. I know it feels like the delay was solely for the Switch this time around, but if there is any truth to the pure ambition of the game, I can see how localization could easily be a massive factor in delaying a game’s release.

For more on Breath of the Wild, stay tuned right here at Zelda Informer.

Source: Emily Rogers