Rumor: Zelda: Breath of the Wild launches March in North America and Japan, unclear in Europe
Posted on January 5, 2017 by Matt(@OnePunchMaz) in Rumors, Switch, Wii U
Tom Phillips of Eurogamer has come forward with another report on the Switch, following numerous reports of his that turned out to be correct. Today, he talked about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s release date – or release dates, rather. According to his sources, Breath of the Wild will launch in March in both North America and Japan, but the situation in Europe is still unclear. Supposedly, Nintendo of Europe was operating under the assumption that the game would not launch in March alongside the Switch itself and was pushing for a long period of localisation and quality assurance.
However, plans supposedly changed at some point during the last couple of months, and the higher-ups in at Nintendo in Japan wanted to make the Switch launch lineup as strong as possible, and thus decided to make Breath of the Wild a launch title in both North America and Japan.
It is not clear, according to Tom Phillips, what the situation currently looks like for the European version of Breath of the Wild. It’s possible that Nintendo might allocate additional resources to it in order to ensure it launches in March, like in the other regions – or it might miss the Switch’s launch and be released a couple of months later. This would be a massive blow for European fans, however, there have been several reports that the Switch is region-free, so importing might be a valid option.
Laura Kate Dale has also talked about Breath of the Wild’s release date recently – she also heard that the game will launch in March in North America, but is unsure about its European release date.
Liam Robertson added that the situation in Australia, being part of the PAL region, is the same as in Europe with regards to Breath of the Wild’s release date.
