Breath of the Wild 2 trailer hints at Nintendo Switch Pro, says Digital Foundry

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 trailer is not running on native Nintendo Switch hardware, according to tech analysis experts Digital Foundry.

Speaking on the latest Digital Foundry podcast, Richard Leadbetter, John Linneman and Alex Battaglia discussed the delay surrounding Breath of the Wild 2 and believe the new footage shown as part of the game being pushed back might point to it running on a Nintendo Switch Pro. This was attributed to several factors, such as the higher resolution, volumetric clouds and anti-aliasing. 

"This trailer was interesting because the image quality seemed quite good. I was a little bit surprised by how sharp and clear this looked compared to the original in general," said Linneman. Leadbetter added: "It's up for debate whether it is actually running on the normal Switch hardware." 

The question of whether the trailer is running on a Nintendo Switch was then posed to Battaglia: "I honestly don't think it is, just because we have seen so very rarely volumetric clouds on Switch and these are like not breaking down super obviously," he said. "Another thing that was really obvious in the trailer was camera cuts have, like, perfect anti-aliasing, which is even rare for an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5 game. I don't know what that means necessarily, it could be the next Switch..."

The group then debated whether the footage was just rendered at a higher resolution and higher settings like the original Breath of the Wild trailer, although it was noted that Nintendo typically doesn't commonly do this. As a result, the DF believes this not to be the case. 

"I just generally think that since they are delaying it now, I think this is gonna be the equivalent of what we saw with Breath of the Wild, where it launches on the old and also on the new and we see the nice benefits of the new there, regarding Switch Pro, Switch 2, Switch EX or whatever it's called," continued Battaglia. 

Leadbetter concluded by saying: "I agree that the leap in image quality compared to the first title is stark, to say the least."  You can watch the full conversation below, beginning at the 24:28 mark. 

Last month, Nintendo officially delayed Breath of the Wild 2 to Spring 2023 with Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma promising "something special". Rumours of a Switch Pro have circled for a good couple of years now with Nintendo never giving any indication of its existence. Could this be the first footage on the new hardware? 

As the Switch is set to celebrate its sixth anniversary in March 2023, it doesn't seem out of the realms of possibility that Nintendo would want to launch a new upgraded Switch to coincide with the launch of Breath of the Wild 2, similar to what it did with the original game. Only time will tell whether this actually happens. 

To keep up with all the latest news, rumours and everything else, head to the official T3 Breath of the Wild 2 hub to find out more.  

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