Nintendo is working on a direct Breath of the Wild sequel

Nintendo’s E3 live stream this year was light on big announcements, save for a teaser of a follow up to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at the end of the show.

The quick trailer is up on Nintendo’s YouTube channel already and offers a peek at the darker direction the next new game in the long-running series will take. What’s especially notable about the announcement though is that the upcoming Zelda game is a direct sequel that takes place in the setting and time period as the open-world Breath of the Wild, something uncommon for the series.

Breath of the Wild released for both the Nintendo Switch and Wii U in March 2017. The game was a launch title on the Nintendo Switch and as of this March is the fourth top-selling Nintendo Switch game. Nintendo crowned it the best selling Legend of Zelda game to date last year and, with 12.77 million sold on just the Switch as of this March, that record seems to stand. 

The vast open world of the game and how it eschewed situational items in favor of more versatile abilities made for a notable departure from how past Legend of Zelda games were structured, and that difference looks to be something Nintendo is eager to explore further in the coming sequel.