All right, time to see how I did! (NOTE: The "2019 ME" paragraphs were written in 2019--specifically, in post #310 of this thread--with minor updates I wrote last week. The "2021 ME" paragraphs were written just now, with the new teaser taken into context).
2019 ME: First of all, I don't expect BotW 2 to radically reinvent the wheel compared to BotW. This is a sequel that grew out of leftover ideas from the first game's DLC. It's gonna use the same artstyle, the same control scheme, and the same physics engine, with at most some minor improvements and modifications. I think people expecting BotW to take place in a totally new world are missing the point. BotW 2 won't be attempting to deliver the same experience BotW did; it'll be doing something new within the BotW framework. So I expect that it will take place in BotW's Hyrule, but with modifications. UPDATE: I am expecting more out of BotW 2 now than I did then; see below.
2021 ME: Definitely uses the same artstyle, most likely uses the same control scheme, almost certainly uses the same physics engine, and at this point we don't know how far the improvements and modifications go. It's also definitely taking place in the same Hyrule and might actually have fewer changes to the original map than I'd expected (it seems like the floating landmasses are coming from somewhere else and are not tearing up the terrain below). This is both something I expected and something I didn't expect at the same time. Classic Nintendo.
2019 ME: I don't think exploration is going to be the big focus this time around. Nintendo has a long-standing bias against doing the same things over and over. Just a couple of months ago they mentioned delivering new experiences with BotW 2. So I don't think we should go into it expecting to get the same thing out of BotW 2 that we did in BotW 1. The world will still be there, and we'll probably still be able to run around in it similar to how we did before, but I believe Nintendo is going to design much tighter, more purposeful objectives for the player than before. Whatever focus exploration plays in BotW 2 will probably be centered on uncovering differences between the map as it appears in the sequel compared to the first game. UPDATE: I have a new take on this; see below.
2021 ME: Puzzle-solving is going to be more important than exploration this time around. Nintendo
loooooves its Puzzelda, and we're going to see that comeback big-time in this game. I think they're going to try to resurrect their "the whole world is a puzzle!" scheme that failed with Skyward Sword. I'm leery of this, but maybe they'll pull it off this time. We'll see.
2019 ME: The Shrines are definitely going to be gone. I'm not sure what explanation, if any, Nintendo will provide for their absence. It probably doesn't matter.
2021 ME: Yep.
2019 ME: Similarly, the Sheikah Slate will be gone. It's not in the trailer, which it should be if Link or Zelda (most likely Zelda) still has it. The Slate was designed to be a Wii U Gamepad. Nintendo's not gonna want the reminder of that albatross staring it in the face every day. UDPATE: I still think Link won't be using the Slate. However, I would add the caveat that if Zelda is playable for certain segments of the game, she most likely will use the Slate. AoC has demonstrated that Nintendo is not as psychologically scarred at seeing the Slate as I figured they might be.
2021 ME: Slate's history. We'll never see it again. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't even get mentioned.
2019 ME: Everyone expects Link's glowing arm powers will replace the Slate functions. This is pretty much a guarantee, but I would go a step farther: I think Link's arm powers might replace the weapon inventory system, too. I think there's a chance Link's arm could "turn into" the various weapons/tools that he needs. This would eliminate the weapon durability system and altogether remove one of the most divisive aspects of the first game. And while I'm at it, there's no chance Link keeps the Master Sword after that opening area (which is probably what is depicted in the trailer). Most likely he'll drop it during the earthquake and won't get it back till near the end of the game, if at all.
2021 ME: Slate powers are in the arm now, obviously. Looks like picking up weapons from defeated enemies is still in the game. This is actually a bummer because it's one of the gameplay systems I hoped Nintendo would completely overhaul. Guess not.
2019 ME: Removing weapon durability would also free up the designers to create more enemy types, which hopefully is at least somewhat of a priority for Nintendo this time around.
2021 ME: Verdict is still very much out on this one.
2019 ME: Everyone talks about the first game lacking "proper" dungeons, but what it was really lacking was more areas like Hyrule Castle. The simplest way to illustrate this is to take the maze island in the northeast corner of the map as en example. All Nintendo had to do to make that maze a truly unique, frightening area was put a roof on it. Simply cutting off the player's access to the sky instantly makes that maze a hundred times more intimidating. They could do more, of course, like putting unique enemies in there, or keeping it always dark (like they did in that one forest), but a roof alone would make a huge difference. Or how about the Forgotten Temple--instead of being simply a big area with a bunch of Guardians in it, why couldn't it have been its own little mini-dungeon? They could have put a pyramid in the desert somewhere. Think about the hidden Shrine in the northwest mountains, in the same cave with the Leviathan bones--that could have been an elaborate network of tunnels and corridors. The Zonai Ruins could've been an abandoned ancient temple complex. Nintendo missed a lot of opportunities to do stuff like that in BotW. Let's hope they seize the opportunity this time around. UPDATE: Still hoping for this.
2021 ME: My guess is that Nintendo will attempt to resurrect its failed "the whole world is a puzzle" idea from Skyward Sword. There probably won't be designated "dungeon" areas as much as the whole world will be a series of puzzles to figure out how to get around in the sky/underground.
2019 ME: I really don't see Zelda being playable in this, at least not as a stand-in for Link. She doesn't seem to have the Slate anymore, and I don't see any reason to expect her to get the same kind of arm powers Link does. Plus, during the trailer there's a brief clip of Link helping her up a ledge, indicating she can't climb it herself. If Zelda can't climb, she'd be almost useless as a PC in a Breath of the Wild game. She's also shown as the one riding the mount (riding side-saddle, no less--a classic pose for princesses), while Link goes on in front, and she's the one who turns around and gasps when Ganon starts to revive. Aonuma's answer to the question of Zelda being playable indicated sheer surprise on his part why anybody even wanted that. I don't think Aonuma "gets" why some people are so hung up over this. Best-case scenario is that Zelda accompanies Link throughout the game as a companion, possibly using that huge mount as a disembark station or something. Maaaaaybe she might be used in a 2-Player co-op thing, but I suspect that even if the game does have co-op, it'll be of the Mario variety where the second player controls a cursor, or something (remember, every multiplayer Zelda game to date has had the multiple players simply play different colored versions of Link). I think a Wolf Link-type situation is the best we can hope for here. I don't think it'll be a situation where we switch between them during gameplay, because that would be extremely disorienting in a game the size of BotW. Plus, them having separate abilities and needing to work together to get through areas would create a situation where both characters would have to be basically tethered together pretty much at all times, which would be super-annoying. If she's going to be playable, it'll be in a Wind Waker-type set-up where we briefly switch off from Link to use Zelda to solve a specific puzzle, or something (I actually thought they would do this with Zelda while I was playing WW and was super-bummed it didn't turn out that way). Seeing as how Nintendo has never really gone back to that gimmick, it seems to be one they don't think highly of, so I'm not too excited about those prospects, either. Last but not least is the voice acting issue. It would be extremely weird for the player character in a Zelda game to suddenly talk. I'm convinced Nintendo will never give Link a proper voice, and this Zelda already has one. Switching the roles now would be very weird, probably too weird for Nintendo to consider it (and I don't believe Nintendo has ever seriously considered, or even just considered, period, making Zelda playable in an actual Zelda game... and I don't think they're going to start doing that now).
2021 ME: No way is Zelda playable in this game.
2019 ME: That being said, I would like very much for Zelda to have an expanded role in the game, and her prominence in the trailer would seem to indicate that. There's usually a direct connection between how prominently Zelda features in a Zelda game and how far in advance of the game's release Nintendo starts releasing images of her--the less she appears in a game, the more likely we won't see her until close to the game's release. The fact that she was all over the trailer would seem to indicate that she will be in this game a lot, but this is mitigated by the fact that the entire trailer likely takes place in the first hour of the game. Her having her hair cut probably means that she's an in-game asset this time around, rather than being strictly relegated to cutscenes, as she was in BotW. So we should expect to get to interact with her, at least for a little while. Still, even after saying all that...
… my gut feeling tells me that Zelda will likely be captured as soon as the cutscene depicted in the trailer ends, and Link will have to spend the whole game getting back to her. I don't want this to happen, but all my instincts are screaming at me that this is probably what Nintendo will do. Nintendo has never seen the value in Zelda as a character and has never seemed to understand why players want to see more of her. They seem to consider spin-offs like Smash Bros., Hyrule Warriors, and Cadence of Hyrule as being sufficient to satisfy players' desires on this. So until proven otherwise, this is what I will expect. This is one area where I hope I'm wrong, however.
2021 ME: "So until proven otherwise, this is what I will expect." Nothing has happened to change my mind on this.
2019 ME: As for me, I would like to see Zelda fill a role like that of Evelyn Carnahan in the movie The Mummy. I think it would be so cool if Nintendo could somehow create an experience of going down into spooky caves and ancient ruins and uncovering evidence of the ancient past, with Link being the "doer" and Zelda being the "thinker." Zelda actually being around and doing things and helping out Link and interacting with him is one of the other experiences I've always wanted out of a Zelda but have never gotten. The spin-offs have come close, but nothing would compare to getting to do this in an actual, proper Legend of Zelda game.
2021 ME: Still waiting for that experience. Sigh....
2019 ME: As the first BotW attempted to recreate the original LoZ's Overworld, I think the second BotW will attempt to recreate LoZ's Underworld. I think the focus this time will be on exploring underground mazes, tunnels, chambers, and ruins. With a 10,000 timeline to mess around with, there's plenty of opportunity here for Nintendo to say, "Hey, the original Hyrule still exists, just buried deep underground." The purpose of the Overworld this time around will be to find the entrances to the Underworld, just like in the original LoZ. And just like in that game, where all the labyrinths actually existed side-by-side on the same map, all the underground areas will ultimately be connected, even though it obviously won't be a wide-open space like the Overworld. You wouldn't be able to get to all the various areas of the Underworld without finding the different entrances on the Overworld, but eventually you'll open up enough routes and be able to explore the entire Underworld as a single, unified area. UPDATE: I would still like to be right on this, but I've had a new idea about the direction Nintendo might take the game, one that seems more distinctly Nintendo-like; see below.
2021 ME: Who knows.
2019 ME: For example, while traveling through a part of the Underworld, you might be able to see an area that you can't reach from where you are. But by studying the terrain and your map, you might be able to get a good idea where the Overworld entrance to that part of the Underworld must be. So you go back to the Overworld, search around, and ah, ha! You find the Underworld entrance, just as you thought you would. Once down there, you can lower a rope bridge or something to connect those two parts of the Underworld and travel freely back and forth between them, without having to go back up to the Overworld.
2021: I was probably on the right track, but in the wrong direction. Instead of thinking of Overworld-Underworld, it seems that Nintendo wants to do Sky-Overworld. I wonder if this just a hang-up with Aonuma because Skyward Sword was so terrible and he wants a re-do.
2019 ME: This time around, instead of gathering a bunch of Link's memories, we could be gathering information about Ganon's past. Maybe the reason why Link (and hopefully Zelda with him) is going around all these underground ruins is because the original Hyrule is buried down there, and there are clues that will be necessary to help us figure out how to defeat Ganon once and for all. As part of this, when we find a "memory" (or an ancient tome, or whatever form or container these might take), we'll see a cutscene, like in the first game--but of events from Ganon's life, not Link's. These events could be things that actually happened in previous Zelda games, rendered and voice-acted with the BotW engine. I think that'd be super-cool.
2021 ME: Although this is still probably too much to expect, I actually think something like this probably will happen in BotW 2. There's definitely some kind of time-element involved, and that Mummy is definitely ancient and we're definitely going to have to figure out how to defeat him. So even though I don't think Nintendo will go through with this to the degree that I'd like, I'm not giving up on this one yet.
2019 ME: All of this comes together in a game that would lean in to players' desire to know more about Hyrule's history. Nintendo could actually make a game that's all about uncovering Hyrule's ancient secrets. This would combine Nintendo's gameplay-first focus with the fans' interest in Hyrule's mythos and lore. These two things could actually combine into one in BotW 2. Let's hope Nintendo sees the value in doing something like that. This would be the perfect time to do something like this, as this game is a direct sequel to an existing game (which itself was a palette-cleanser that wiped the slate clean of timeline shenanigans by relegating every other Zelda game to 10,000 years in the past), and its appeal will be to those who have already played the first game. Plus, being a sequel, the audience for the game would be people who already own a Switch and BotW, so this game wouldn't have to deal with the pressure of being a system-seller the way the first game did. Just like MM did after OoT, there's a chance for this game to go much more in-depth with exotic, esoteric topics than what we saw previously. And again, Aonuma himself said this game grew out of ideas from the first game's DLC. If anyone here has read the Creating a Champions book (the Dark Horse book released last year about BotW's development), you know there is a lot of stuff they could still do with this world. If we're ever going to get a Zelda game like this, now would be the time. UPDATE: No chance Nintendo does this.
2021 ME: I'm actually... kinda hopeful that Nintendo will do this now. The way they're clearly connecting this game, at least stylistically, with Skyward Sword, which is at the very beginning of the timeline, plus the fact that they clearly have tons of leftover material from the making of BotW itself, gives me reason to think that they actually are going to do something interesting with the story this time around. My guess is that, via time travel shenanigans, BotW 2 will somehow end up resulting in the events of Skyward Sword's backstory, thus establishing the entire LoZ series as one enormous, never-ending time loop. Since time travel has already featured extensively in the LoZ series for a long time, I could legitimately see Nintendo doing this.
2019 ME: Hopefully, all the ruins of Hyrule will have been rebuilt, or there'll be a sidequest system, similar to the Tarrey Town sidequest in the first game, that lets us rebuild them as the game goes on. Every time I play BotW, my heart aches whenever I pass one of those ruins. I would love to be able to see a fully-functioning Hyrule in all its glory. UPDATE: I have a different thought on how Nintendo might let us see a fully functioning Hyrule now.
2021 ME: No idea. Nintendo doesn't seem to have an interest in doing this, unfortunately. It's plain that the castle, at the very least, will once again be the final dungeon. If anything, Nintendo is likely going to add even more ruins—the ones in the Skyworld—not fix the ones they have.
2019 ME: Let's hope the game doesn't get delayed long enough to tempt Nintendo into putting it on the Switch 2. We haven't had a hassle-free, worry-free, delay-free console Zelda game release in literally decades. It'd be nice to get a Zelda game to come out during the middle of a Nintendo console's life cycle, like they used to, rather than at the very end, like they have for the last dozen years now. UPDATE: Ha ha, how innocent I was.
2021 ME: HA, HA, HA, HA, HA! How innocent I was!
2019 ME: On that note, I hope Nintendo has a better and more viable plan for post-release DLC this time. I'd be completely in favor of getting 2 Seasons Pass worth of DLC, rather than just 1. That would carry us through the rest of the Switch's life cycle and give Nintendo time to work on the first post-Switch 3D Zelda game, which would be free to reinvent the wheel in a way this game won't."
2021 ME: This game is going to come out late enough in the Switch's life cycle that it'll probably end up in the same spot BotW was in—cross-gen with Nintendo's next system, thus inherently limiting its potential for DLC. Another bummer.