When does ‘Breath of the Wild 2’ take place?

With the sequel to Breath of the Wild set to release later this year, fans of the Legend of Zelda release can hardly contain their excitement. Despite the title’s hazy release date, fans of the franchise are already looking ahead to what they can expect from the game.

The majority of details about Breath of the Wild 2 are just as uncertain as its release date, which means that there are achingly few answers to fans’ questions. We don’t know what new abilities will be introduced in the sequel, we don’t know if it will be single or multiplayer — we don’t even know how old Link will be.

On top of all the other questions burning through fans’ minds is the issue of the timeline. We know that Breath of the Wild 2 is directly linked back to Breath of the Wild, but how much time has passed between games? Will we see a lengthy time jump between the first game and its sequel, or does the second game take place directly after the first?

When does Breath of the Wild 2 take place?

Like so many other questions about Breath of the Wild 2, this one is hard to answer. The people at Nintendo have been carefully tight-lipped about the impending release, revealing only bare details to the public. We can make a few tenuous assumptions based on the trailers we’ve seen so far, but there is very little legitimate information regarding when Breath of the Wild 2 takes place.

The first trailer for Breath of the Wild 2 was released at E3 2019. It doesn’t give up many details, instead opting to provide a tantalizing teaser hinting at the dark future that awaits Hyrule. The second trailer, released two years later in June of 2021, provided a few more details, but not enough to determine a genuine timeline.

A few details in the second trailer hint at how much time has passed, however. Link’s outfit seems to have undergone some changes, which likely means that at least a small time jump has occurred between the first Breath of the Wild and its sequel. Link’s hair also appears to have grown, based upon a few of the shots, which could also be an indication of the passage of time.

Based on the minor changes that appear to have cropped up between the two games, I think it’s safe to assume that at least one year has passed. A general range of between one and five years seems like a good bet to me, but a shorter break is more likely than a longer one, simply based on other Legend of Zelda titles. Long time jumps are rare in these games, and Link’s age tends to fall between 12 and 17. Allowing for a time gap of longer than one or two years would put Link in his early ’20s — or 120s, to be precise — which seems a little old for the Hero of Time based on his many previous occurrences.

A time jump of right around one year seems like a likely option. We know some time has passed, if only based on trailer scenes depicting Zelda and Link’s adventures through those creepy caves. One year is long enough to explain why some of the changes in Hyrule came about and to leave some space for further world building. It’s also not long enough to require any full character redesigns and keeps Link in Nintendo’s comfortable age range.