Majora's Mask is in its own completely different world though.
The idea is brilliant: walking dungeons that you have to get inside and move their body and change the shape of the whole dungeon to progress. All 5 were amazing pieces of videogame tech and were very fun to complete. The biggest beef people seem to have with them is that they are all the same theme (inside a giant robot) and that they are too easy and short. In BotW2 I want 4-6 more guardians for sure. I suggest: Fish, Mole, Bat, Crab, and Frog. To address the criticism of BotW they could also do 8 themed deep dungeons that are difficult to solve, survive, are 60-90 minutes, and 2 bosses each. But really BotW had themed dungeons:
Where does late 2017 come from? It seems obvious to me they were sitting on BotW to release align with Switch. BotW may have been done on time in 2016 as originally promised. DLC work began and they said BotW2 started as DLC ideas. DLC was sold at launch so that was already worked out for who knows how long. Bottom line we really don't know for sure how long BotW2 has been in development. It could go all the way back to late 2016, putting this winter at 4 years. That said, they always push hardware with Zelda so I think they will release align BotW2 with a Switch revision which probably is a 2021 release. If the Zelda team gets another year they'll put it to good use for sure.
I'd argue that Link's Awakening has the same kind of "magic" that Majora's Mask held, and had a better overall narrative, though MM of course had the larger cast, more developed characters and side stories. Heck, as maligned as Skyward Sword is sometimes, I really enjoy its narrative and it can be very emotional when it wants to be.
I think they could do this. Honestly, although it's all in memory form and you have to fill in a lot of the blanks yourself, part of what made the memories of Zelda so tantalizing in BOTW is that it shows part of (and hints at a lot more) a pretty cool character arc for Zelda. Her initial desires to be more of a scientist, her frustration and breaking down about not being able to use her powers, etc.
The things you mentionned as "dungeons" really aren't. They're mini dungeons are best, they don't even have bosses, are short to complete and don't even have puzzles. If the great plateau is a dungeon at this point any area in Skyward Sword is a dungeon
Evantide had a boss, the Hinox. It had a theme, stranded isle. It had 3 puzzles, the 3 orbs. It was difficult to survive. It had a reward, a shrine and spirit orb. I think a dungeon convention that people lean on too hard is the item requirement. All the old Zelda's had an item that you could use to go to new places or gave you a clear upgrade in power when you finished the dungeon. BotW isn't built that way. Even the dungeons that are there give you powers that are optional. Evantide doesn't have rooms with keys and locked doors. Is that what defines a Zelda dungeon?
Shrines could be fixed in one of two ways. Either make them all sequential and not random. Or my preferred solution, create one big central dungeon with discrete sections with real themes, like forest, fire, water, etc. And then out in the world have us discover some kind of key or token that after ~5 or so unlocks a new section of the central dungeon. It would still provide an incentive and reward for exploring the world, solving side quests and little riddles, but instead of a short and easy Shrine we'd get a more substantial dungeon later on. Instead of have 120 very small, short Shrines have like 20+ medium and large sized ones. With multiple rooms and increasingly more complex and difficult puzzles that build off what came before.
same thinking as always: it makes zero sense to think they'd just use the same map, they'd be done with the game last year then. stuff will have happened. remixed world. familiar landmarks, altered layout/world state.
