Experts question if Breath of the Wild 2 footage is running on current Switch

Following the delay of the Legend of Zelda: BOTW sequel, tech experts believe the newest footage looks a little too good for current Nintendo Switch tech.

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There has been a huge desire to learn more about the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel and Nintendo is only letting it out in the tiniest of trickles, but what we’ve seen recently has experts wondering whether the Breath of the Wild sequel’s latest footage was running on current Switch technology. A breakdown of the various graphical elements of the footage may suggest that it was recorded on an upgraded Nintendo Switch.

It was on a recent episode of Digital Foundry’s Direct Weekly YouTube show that the latest footage of the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel was discussed. Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman, and Alex Battaglia discussed the technical aspects of the footage, speaking to the clarity of the image, anti-aliasing, 1080p/720p rendering, and draw distances, just to name a few. According to each of the hosts, the visuals looked a little too good to be running on current Nintendo Switch technology, bringing up the possibility that maybe the Breath of the Wild sequel’s delay to 2023 was also meant to make way for a simultaneous release on the current Nintendo Switch and upgraded version that would be released around the same time.

It's far from the first time we’ve heard rumors regarding the possibility of an upgraded Nintendo Switch. Most recently, a leak of NVIDIA internal documents suggested the possibility that a new Switch was in the works that might include DLSS capabilities. In and of itself, that would be a major boost to the Switch’s capabilities. However, we’ve yet to see any sort of confirmation out of Nintendo or NVIDIA at this point. Nonetheless, as Digital Foundry points out, Nintendo is not usually the type to share footage of a game running beyond capabilities of available company technology and hardware. That would suggest Nintendo might have some kind of platform that’s better than the current Switch and may be coming in the future.

Visual aspects like draw distance, rendering, clarity, and more have experts wondering if the new Breath of the Wild sequel footage was recorded on an upgraded Nintendo Switch.
Visual aspects like draw distance, rendering, clarity, and more have experts wondering if the new Breath of the Wild sequel footage was recorded on an upgraded Nintendo Switch.

Still, a supposed Nintendo Switch Pro or other upgraded console have seen no confirmation at this time. With the Breath of the Wild sequel pushed back into Spring 2023, it will remain to be seen leading up to next year if Digital Foundry’s suspicions are correct. Stay tuned for more details and updates as they become available, here at Shacknews.

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

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