Groundbreaking Gameplay Mechanics Revealed In Nintendo Patents for Breath of the Wild 2

Nintendo is holding its cards very close to the chest when it comes to details about Breath of the Wild 2. We’ve had a couple of trailers, but we’ve only seen a snippet of gameplay so far. That has led fans to scour the internet for details elsewhere outside of trailers, and some interesting details have been found about gameplay mechanics in Nintendo Patents. Today I am going to run through the details of the patents and discuss them with you, plus check out the footage we’ve already seen, and look at some predictions at what we could see in the next Breath of the Wild 2 trailer.

First of all today I’d love to hear what you think about Breath of the Wild 2, and what you want to see in the game. If you enjoy speculating about Breath of the Wild 2, then I have a couple of suggestions for you including ‘Everything we know about Breath of the Wild 2 so far…’, where I check out all the trailers we have and look through them with a fine-tooth comb. Plus, I have done a roundup of the best fan theories and speculation related to Breath of the Wild 2, so if you prefer wondering what could be and getting all hyped for the sequel of one of the best games ever, then check those out and let me know what you think.

Let’s dive into today’s topic and that’s some Nintendo Patents that give some clues to gameplay mechanics that could be found in Breath of the Wild 2. The E3 2021 trailer appears to confirm two out of the three patents, with the final one yet to be seen in gameplay, and that’s understandable because the final gameplay mechanic is very exciting and could be a huge differentiator for The Legend of Zelda series. Big thanks to Gamereactor.eu, who found all these patents and added some commentary, head on over to their website and check them out.

Without further delay, let’s look at the patents. We have three overall and can back up at least two of them with gameplay footage from trailers.

Rewind Time

The first patent looks at a rewind feature. The patent details a barrel, and seems to suggest it going backwards. However, on the right-hand side, we clearly see a rewind timeline indicated. It appears as if Link can select an object and then rewind time for a few seconds. This has huge potential for combat and puzzles and is very exciting.

We have seen a good demonstration of this from gameplay in the E3 2021 trailer, if only for a few seconds. We can pull out the footage and slow it down to see what’s going on. We see Link throw out his right hand, and stop what looks to be a huge metal spiked ball that’s rolling down a hit at him. The camera then rotates around to the right and we see the path the ball has taken after a few seconds Link somehow rewinds and sends the ball back where it came from on the same path. It looks from the footage like nothing else is affected by this rewind mechanic, only the object in focus, and I am assuming you select the object

Travel Through Solid Matter

This patent looks at Link’s abilities to travel through the floor or solid matter. We’ve seen a clip from the E3 2021 trailer where Link appears to lift upwards, through concrete and burrows out of the top. This was shown again during the 2022 delay trailer, where Link then presents the broken Master Sword to the glowing orb.

Looking at the diagram in the patent we see a character that’s able to travel upwards, and then go through a portal and appear above. The patent sets out a satisfactory condition and a couple of conditions where this wouldn’t work. For example, the example where it does work looks like it’s a flat-ish surface under a certain angle. There are a couple of conditions where the portal travel method wouldn’t work which include the angle of the ground being greater than the limit, also if the target area is too small for our character to fit into.

Checking back on the trailer footage, we see Link travel upwards to some kind of ruin in the sky, where he makes his way through the solid concrete and crawls out the other side. Here it works because the surface of the floor is relatively flat, but it looks like this wouldn’t work on a steep hill, or if the area is too small. Given it’s a wide-open space, then Link is free to travel upwards.

Aerial Battles

The final patent is one we haven’t seen in gameplay, and perhaps for good reason, as it’s going to be a massive hype builder. The patent suggests Link can shoot arrows while skydiving, opening up the potential for battles in the sky.

Looking at the patent we have three states. Vertically downward, with the character diving and pointing the bow and arrow directly down. We have a second state where you are diving diagonally down towards a target. We then have a third state where the Link is upward relative to the reference direction. I think that’s a complicated way of saying shooting relatively normally while falling from the sky.

In Skyward Sword, we could battle in the sky while on the back of the Loftwing, but this mechanic opens up the potential for big sky battles and points to more of Breath of the Wild 2 taking place in the sky as well as on the ground in Hyrule. We have known for a while that we’re going to be travelling between the ground on Hyrule and the floating islands in the sky. This patent points to potential gameplay elements in the space between the ground and the sky islands and having to battle our way downwards.

I can imagine using the second patent detailed here, travelling through solid matter, and using this mechanic to get into the sky above. Rather than use a Loftwing to travel down, perhaps we simply skydive and use our paraglider to land safely on the ground. In the middle, though we may see other flying enemies or flying opponents we have to battle with our Bow and Arrows.

Next trailer

We have seen two out of the three patents here in the gameplay footage, both in the E3 2021 trailer. We haven’t yet seen the aerial combat in action, which could very well be highlighted in the next Breath of the Wild 2 trailer. We don’t know when that is going to be at the moment, Nintendo moves very much to the beat of their own drum when it comes to game announcements. We do know Breath of the Wild 2 is currently scheduled for Spring 2023. Also, we haven’t yet had a summer games show from Nintendo. We had a big Nintendo Direct earlier in 2022, but we haven’t yet had something in summer 2022. Hopefully, we will get something towards the end of April, as we’re a little under a year away now from the scheduled release date for Breath of the Wild 2, and it’s been nearly a year since we’ve had a major update. I am super excited about the possibility of aerial combat for Breath of the Wild 2, and I can’t wait to see how Nintendo has implemented that into the game.

Let me know in the comments what you think of the patents, and what else you want to see in Breath of the Wild 2, I’d love to hear from you.

That’s it for this look at some groundbreaking gameplay mechanics in Nintendo patents for Breath of the Wild 2. For more Legend of Zelda content like this check out Triforce Times on YouTube and subscribe today.