Just exactly when is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild going to arrive? That's a question that will no doubt be answered properly next week when Nintendo shows off the Switch to the press and public, but for the time being reports appear to suggest that it will hit the March launch window of the new console - but not everywhere in the world.
Eurogamer has been speaking to sources close to Nintendo and has learned that while there were plans to hold the game back until later in the year, a decision was apparently made at the end of 2016 and Breath of the Wild will form part of the Switch's launch lineup - in Japan and North America, at least.
In Europe - where the game will need to be localised into multiple languages - the story is less clear. According to Eurogamer's sources, the decision to push ahead with a March release regardless of how it would impact Europe was only made at the end of last year. In short, NCL wants the game on the shelves in its two key markets, irrespective of what Nintendo of Europe decides to do.
So where does this leave European Zelda fans? One scenario would be that Nintendo of Europe pushes ahead with the translation process - a tall order given that March is just around the corner - or perhaps ships the game in English and patches in the additional languages at a later date. While that might sound outlandish, Nintendo did exactly that with Xenoblade Chronicles X in North America, patching in the French and Spanish options January 2016, a full month after its initial December 2015 launch.
The third and perhaps least welcome option would be delaying the release of the game in Europe until later in the year, allowing time for it to be fully localised for all European territories.
Nintendo is expected to outline its Switch launch lineup next week. What do you think will happen in regards to Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Share your predictions with a comment.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 99
Just ask Laura Kate Dale. She "seems to know" everything regarding the switch so far
There is no confusion here, Nintendo will, maybe, tell us next week, And until then this is just rumour, rumour and more rumour........
If the Switch is region free, couldn't they just sell some USA copies in the UK? I mean, it'll be the same translation, won't it?
I'm going to be annoyed if the killer app of the Switch isn't available at launch... I just hope there's some other awesome games announced on the 13th.
@Moms-Meowth
Vey good, lol
I don't care either way I just want the switch already.i don't care about any details I'm a Nintendo fan since 1986 .I just want it already
It's okay, I'll import it. Just make the Switch region free, Nintendo.
Best of waiting till next week.
As a European I suppose I am not too happy if the rumor turn out to be true, but I will just try to get the American version if I have to, if the Switch is region free of course so that that big of a deal for me suppose.
I do wonder though if it would be possible to just release the English version first in Europe and then update as the localization finishes for each language, like mentioned in the article.
Either way, Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 comes out on the 31 March in Europe, so I have something to play if I want I guess ^^.
I just realized the Zelda games so far have received outright stellar Italian translations so far.
Localizing and translating Nintendo games caused Europe to wait a long time in the past, including the infamous Super Smash Bros. Brawl release date (summer, five months or so after North America).
This is an open-world title along the lines of Skyrim.
Coming out for both Switch and Wii U.
Uh-oh.
If the game is ready for US and Japan, the go ahead!
But it would really blow if we in the Europe had to wait several months. I would have to stay away from the web for that time!
I hope they would just release it with English and other ready languages and patch the remaining other language options later. (Fingers crossed for original Japanese for other regions too)
If this is all true then I am a happy man as I can read English
That's why kids, its a very good investment to learn English as a second language when you're still little.
Maybe if they can't make the release date with localization, the XCX choice may be the best, instead of having to push back the game for all the systems.
Bloody non English speaking European countries!! Anyway we and I mean the U.K. Have brexited so we should get all our games on par with North America now 😛 I thought that was the whole point of brexit???
Who does even play games in a language other than English?
"...to be fully localised for all European territories."
I guess you meant mainly the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, France, Italy by that...
"sources close to Nintendo"
No, they've just been reading reddit.
And to all the people saying it won't be a problem if it's region free, this would be pretty much the nail in the coffin to confirm 100% that it WON'T be region free, because Nintendo.
@Great_Gonzalez Actually Brexit hasnt happened yet. Could take a minimum of Two years. Not as straight forward as the government made it out to be.
The extra languages could hold up the European releases as it would be a tonne of extra work for localisation.
Solution? The Switch is rumoured to be region free so those in Europe desperate enough to get their hands on it could import an American copy.
Dammit Nintendo! Just go full ATLUS and release things in English. It's good for learning.
@Great_Gonzalez
Thank-you for clarifying what brexit was all about
if it comes to europe in june then im importing even if its reigon locked, ill just have to buy a us switch
Yeah do the XCX scenario, it is their fault if they don't know how to read the most used language in the world ..
2017 though, Nintendo continuing to be Nintendo.
@hieveryone English is actually the 3rd or 4th most used language in the world
@Great_Gonzalez Not only has Brexit not happened, but it probably will never happen. Add to that the fact that we wouldn't get the US version because we're still in the PAL region.
Yet again another reason I am losing all respect for Nintendo
@Menchi187 oh... Well it is definitely used more than Irish and German and French and whatever...
@Great_Gonzalez lol but on a serious note though I wonder how this does affect UK game releases? Will they still need to include all the languages of Europe or be able to release in English alone? I mean, they still include languages from non-EU countries like Norway don't they?
@Bunkerneath I have no idea why Nintendo likes to region lock, glad I lived in America lol
I've waited this long, I doubt I'll be bother if I have to wait a bit longer. Saying that, spoilers will obviously be an issue and no-one likes that.
@Baker1000 They have never included all the languages of Europe... They include just five: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish.
@KappaBeta Actually, there is also Dutch, and recently (with the Wii U) Russian has been added too.
You young-uns don't know you're born! We could just go back to the SNES days and have to wait 18 months for the European Switch console release!
@Loui Apparently the game has no Kakariko Village and Link will die in the end and Ganon is not the main villian and Zelda is actually sleeping
Lol! Is it so hard to just wait one more week..?
Reading some comments really made me laugh hard. Its not the end of the world, just wait one more week and take a breath (of the wild) haha 😂
@The-Chosen-one Europeans get triggered just like Americans
@Mister_Wu You're right but this is the case only with few games (which also include Portuguese ). However most Nintendo games in PAL territories are presented in the five languages I wrote.
Poor Europe!
lol creating your own news again? Releasing a rumour, then talking about how it’s just a rumour, then talk about what the rumour is rumoured to mean to others…?
as someone that can't afford, the switch right now and planning to buy the wiiu version, I really hope it's not true, I've been waiting for years
This would be a bit of a blow but I can see how it makes sense for Nintendo to get the game out in Japan and NA regardless, if at all possible.
There is no confusion. Nintendo has not said the dates yet. Rumors are being used to much for the switch. They will tell us stuff next week. I hope it clears up things so all these Fox News type fact articles can be less prevalent.
It doesn't make sense for Nintendo to hold back LOZBOTW - they have had plenty of time to do the localisation. Tbh - I think a lot of "online journalists" are a bit attention seeking right now. . .
How about we wait a week? You know, for
T H E P R E S E N T A T I O N.
@cfgk24 More just difficult to report on anything but rumors right now. Even though Bioware said they are not planning to do a Mass Effect port they could be under NDA and have to lie about it so we cannot even take the "confirmations" as facts till after next week. And Zelda we cannot even officially call a delay because we never had a solid release date in the first place.
Hope after the 12th all the rumors will be shut down by the studios and Nintendo as this is getting very tiring.
The UK will still be under Nintendo of Europe when brexit happens. That is a given.
Also, UK shops will not retail games that aren't EU territory games. I know this from when I tried to sell a Vita game I had a duplicate copy of (was too trigger happy on eBay and ended up with two of the same US game!)
I sincerely hope they localise for Europe in time for the Switch launch. It would hark back to the old days of EU being a third world territory for video games. And they really need a strong launch
You know what would be kind of cool but pointless? If you could play the game in Hylian.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE That's no excuse though. The game won't be translated to my native language anyway, cause that never happens, and I don't care about that. I'm fine with playing the English version, but it sucks if most of Europe has to wait because they couldn't finish the translations in time, or because Japan or NA is pushing for a release. Anyway, shipping over a copy from the US takes a while and is bloody expensive, it's not my fault when Nintendo can't handle simple things like localisation. Didn't happen with Uncharted, or with The Witcher. I hope this isn't true, cause the last thing I'm looking forward to is trying to avoid YouTube and pretty much the entire internet for a couple of weeks or even months.
edit: Also, shipping is only an option for the Switch version.
@dew12333 Yes, a rumor from Eurogamer, and they haven't gotten any of their so-called "information" about the Switch right so far...
Translations to languages other than English should've died out in the '90s. If you're older than ten and/or have some sort of brain disorder you've no excuse not to learn proper English. Think of all the things you'll miss out on; not least of which is the undiluted original author's prose. The entire redundant process perpetuates a culture of complacency and underachievement.
Of course, you might make the same argument of any work subject to international localization. Technically, a translation is in itself inherently a reinterpretation of a work. But meh, I guess I'm just annoyed that localization causes delays like this for selfish, short-sighted reasons.
@Solid_Stannis I disagree, maybe because I grew up forced to learn English in order to play some games, or maybe it's because when a game is translated it feels like a proof that gaming got a bigger relevance around here, but I can't avoid to see every game properly translated in italian as a victory.
Althought I do agree more people should study english, it's just a too useful knowledge for fully ignore it.
Who cares about the Switch. When is the Wii U version being released?
@Octane I agree with you.
@Solid_Stannis Sorry but culture of complacency?, for this reason everyone should learn Japanese, not English, and sorry but many english speakers don't seems to be so eager to learn a new languague, same reason for the need of remaking every good foreign serie or movie for english speaker, instead of good subtitles, lets do it again because it is so hard to read characters.
Unsure if this was mentioned above already so I apologize if it was. Assuming the Switch is indeed region free, less patient gamer like myself would simply pick up the American version on import retailers.
Nintendo gonna Nintendo. No other major publisher seems to need all this extra time for localisation. It's not as simple as 'just import'. The currency exchange rate is weak and import tax is high. I bought a $60 item in December and it cost me £72 by the time I got my hands on it (20 import tax + an unavoidable handling fee and that was with FREE shipping. That's DOUBLE what a game costs to buy in the U.K. It's not a viable solution!
@Solid_Stannis "Think of all the things you'll miss out on; not least of which is the undiluted original author's prose."
So in this specific case, Japanese? Everyone should just learn Japanese then if they want to play Nintendo games?
But seriously, I understand your point. I'm in The Netherlands myself but could care less for a possible Dutch translation. I play all my games in (and have all my devices and such set to) English. I prefer it that way.
But I think it is a bit self-centered to just expect everybody to adhere to the most common denominator. Why not have an open mind for the non-English speakers and let them have things a bit "their way" too? It sucks having to (possibly) wait a bit longer, yes, but not complaining about it makes you that much more of a nice person, in my opinion at least.
Uh oh, that doesn't sound like region free to me. Cause if it is region free then everyone will import from America for English Spanish and French version of the game.
But, meh, I can wait a few more months for new Zelda. Not the end of the world. Been waiting since Link Between World's tbf.
If nin brings it out in Japan and NA and not Europe for months ect this will in my opinion be a huge huge mistake.There's plenty of Games out for Switch as I see it and a few months isn't going to hurt anybody.So I hope Eurogamer is wrong
Fine by me. NA is the biggest market so if Ninty has a chance to launch Zelda with the Switch in March in that region alone, it's worth it.
Europe will eventually get it.
@Wexter I agree - Journalists stirring up stuff for clicks. . . ( some of them aren't 'Journalists' lol
In there they only play fifa son instead of zelda they will get a fifa game. That's how market people thinks i hope not though ill get it on wii u digital if there is no special edition release like with amiibo or sonething
"will form part of the Switch's launch lineup "
So is this now strongly rumoured to be a "launch" release, or is there supposed to be the word "window" in there? Would be nice to have it at launch, but everybody should remember the Wii U's big launch title Pikmin 3, that released in August 8 months after the console's launch.
LOL all the talk of "English". Yes, I know it's the most universally widespread of all the Earth's languages, but as somebody who lives in NY, it's dieing fast. Where I went to high school was about 50% Caucasian, 25% Hispanic and 25% African-American. Now it's 100% Chinese. The rest of the US seems to like Spanish.
Spanish-speakers in the United States
1980 11 million 5%
1990 17.3 million 7%
2000 28.1 million 10%
2010 37 million 13%
2015 41 million 13%
The 1.3 billion Chinese and 1.3 billion Indians are beginning to laugh at the US from behind their nuclear arsenals, and it's not all just b/c Trump becomes President in 2 weeks. Though that isn't helping any.
@cfgk24 @Wexter Why do you feel Eurogamer needs to stir the pot? If anything they've been fairly credible. In my opinion I think it's folks just don't tend to want to absorb or accept anything that doesn't fit what they would like to see happen whether it's the Mass Effect situation, this BOTW, or any other related to Nintendo being left out. Not saying it's factual one way or another until Nintendo announces the official info, but to completely dismiss it from folks with a litle bit more insight than us is illogical
Come on Region-Free Nintendo Switch. It bothered me so much how the 3DS wasn't...
We'll know soon enough. If it's region free they should at least release in UK and Ireland. As the story says going the Xenoblade patching route seems like an easy solution. If this turns out to be true NOE have really dropped the ball. Surely all text within the game has been finalised for a long time now.
@Baker1000 It probably won't change anything 😀
The Switch is going to be much less desirable at launch if Zelda isn't released then.
@Tru80zGamer I'm not dismissing just saying till the 12th passes that we should treat everything under the impression that it could be credible or false. Rumors are rumors and devs have lied in the past for NDA reasons.
I say just hold on till after the 12th. Once that has passed we can start discerning truth from fiction and determine if a dev is being upfront about a game coming to the platform or not. Till then I treat everything as 50/50 could be or could not be true.
Sorry but if Europe was the only region holding everybody back then I agree with Nintendo releasing it in North America and Japan on launch day and making Europe wait. NA is the biggest market and Japanese is the home market so it makes business sense and it'll do wonders for the marketing of the console.
@rjejr
As someone else who also lives in NY, the US will still always be an English speaking country first regardless of the changes in demographics you described. But I'd still like to learn a second language.
@Great_Gonzalez LOL that's pretty great (everyone taking it so seriously is hilarious though)
@Moms-Meowth Lol, so female dog and sarcastic. Love it.
I have to say that I'd rather it was available day one in the US and Japan and we in Europe wait a little longer. The success of the Switch is the most important thing here, a few months wait wouldn't make any difference to me.
If the rumors are false, good, I'll buy it on release as planned.
If they're true, well, there's other games being released in March I like the look of. Nintendo can pretty much say goodbye to at least one console/game sale in their launch window if that's the case, because I'm pretty tired of this s***.
Same happened with Pokemon Sun/Moon, delayed in Europe by 5 days. I was super excited for it but within that 5 days, pretty much everything got spoiled for me by the rest of the world. Canceled my pre-order, still haven't managed to regain my interest to buy it.
I could stay off the internet and lock myself in my house but yano what, changing my routine and avoiding something I use basically every day just because Nintendo still doesn't have their s*** together when it comes to international releases doesn't sound like a reasonable thing to do.
It would annoy me less if they didn't keep including countries like the UK in these delays, primarily English speaking countries where the US translation will do fine.
@Shiryu Yes! Also - remember the New 3ds being released in Australia first? some people imported it to Europe months ahead of European release!
@Tru80zGamer lol - I wasn't necessarily pointing the finger at Eurogamer. .
@cfgk24 Let us hope Nintendo has learned the lesson: Region free like all the Game Boys and the DS, pleaseonegaithankyou!
@Shiryu Mini Famicom Classic is Region Free! ( except it's in Japanese lol ) but yes! I BELIEVE Switch will be Region Free!
Definitelyonegaishemasu!
@cfgk24 In a strange alternate universe, HDMi is region coded. shudders
@Moon
Not really there is plenty of differences in both English languages.
@whanvee I know there are differences - I was merely implying it's likely going to be the same translation either way. I doubt they're going to localise it twice in what is essentially the same language. Even if they don't - I don't mind having the USA version for now, I just need me some Zelda.
Wait, England is going start leaving the EU in March... maybe Japan will release the US version here now?
Not going to happen, but I've heard worse logic in this comment section.
I keep reading Laura Kale Dale.
@Moon Nope, the game must be localized err.. *localised in non-American English.
It would sadden a lot of people if Zelda was Day 1 in other regions and not in Europe. Possibly even 'not buy a Switch bad' for some people. Hope you're not undervaluing us here in this part of the world Nintendo, after all we still buy your products don't we?
Hoping we don't have all the information here or there is a really, really good compromise.
The Eurogamer article does not state whether or not the European version is actually being delayed... even if they did want more time does not mean it was actually needed for a March release.
It just seems like they trying to make an excuse that will prevent their European sources (that allegedly confirmed the rumoured delay) from losing credibility... by saying that the situation was only settled recently they can say that they were correct at the time, regardless of the actual outcome.
Personally, I don't see why there is any delay in the localisation for different regions anyway... they should all be working from the Japanese version, each region should have it's own localisation team, and they should each have roughly the same amount of work to do, so surely if they were working on them all at the same time, then they should all be finished around the same time... the problem (at least in the case of Xenoblade Chronicles X) is that they don't seem to do this... they seem to do the English (US) localisation first and then use that version for the localisation for other regions, which just seems like a waste of time to me.
@Clipo You right !! According what he, and a lot of people here, are saying: Everyone should learn J A P A N E S E.
But I think nintendo want a worldwide release for marketing. I love XCX but it wasn't a best seller like Zelda. And I remenber they originaly start to delay BotW of WiiU for the Switch launch.
This rumour is really difficult to belive. But... Who really knows after all xD
So, it'd be a big step backwards with Nintendo for the South American countries.
Every Zelda game since Twilight Princess for Wii has been released here in America with English, French and Spanish.
My native language is Spanish, and while I understand English very well (thanks to every game before TP being English-only in America), I see this as a big step backwards with Nintendo.
I don't think they'll do this, it would be so bad for their South American fans. I know many people who won't buy the game (nor the Switch) if it's English only here in America.
you will all do yourselves a favor never to worry about a nintendo product being sold in Europe until it is finally out.
@Turbo857
Don't worry I'm sure Trump will make sure of keeping the English language.
So many arrogant English idiots.
My guess is that Breath of the Wild will go the way of the vapourware dodo that is Dr. Kawashima's Devilish Brain Training.
@Moms-Meowth She's one of the people who began casting the doubt that this article expresses.
@yomanation lol, pretty much. I'd feel bad for Europe, and the rest of the world that misses out too... but knowing there exists an English version of the game and they're holding it back... euuugh! That'd be SO frustrating.
Frankly, if they release a region-locked switch and release Zelda everywhere but in Europe at launch... I will feel like Nintendo is p*ssing on me...
I was waiting 6 years for a new 3d Zelda game i can wait 3-4 months longer...
Just be more patient people. Nothing new here. There's always some delay in some games so be patient and sit back
That sound bad for european zelda fans, nintendo cant at least release the switch without this game, if they decided to just released it in usa and japan so be it!!
And once again Europe gets the shaft. Nice start to your new console, Nintendo. If this is truly happening, they deserve all the hate they will get! "Oh no! We have to translate the game into German and French! This will take all year!" - What, does your localization staff consist of like TWO people? Pathetic.
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