The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 has now been in development for over three years

sportskeeda.com:

Nintendo's Legend of Zelda franchise has been going strong since the 80s, starting with the NES original. The action-adventure series starring the green-cloaked hero Link has been consistently outstanding, with the vast majority of them releasing to critical acclaim.

The latest installment in the franchise that's out so far, Breath of the Wild, saw the most prominent hype among them all, all thanks to Nintendo's step in a new direction.

A shift to a free-form open-world focus, allowing the player to play indeed the way they want and reward them for ingenuity, won the Japanese publisher tons of accolades - as well as a 97 on Metacritic.

So it makes sense for the upcoming sequel to be met with even greater anticipation, especially seeing that it's been 1000 days since the game's announcement - that's almost three years.

Ever since the trailer for "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2" dropped in 2019, fans have been ecstatic to see what comes next. Knowing Nintendo's pedigree, there is no doubt that they will deliver a great game that is on par with the original BOTW and a worthy entry to the long-running franchise.

But can it be better? For the amount of universal praise that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild got, criticism was also geared towards several design choices.

The "fragile" weapon durability system, repetitive shrines (mini-dungeons), lack of traditional dungeons, and a weak finale were cited as dents in an otherwise pristine experience. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild had a development cycle of about four years, so it seems likely that the sequel isn't much further off.

After all, it is seemingly on the same core engine tech as the first game, so the development taking as long as a whole new game