The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sequel Is Inspired By Red Dead Redemption 2

This week during its E3 Direct, Nintendo announced that a direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is in development. That said, unfortunately, Nintendo didn't divulge many details about the game, and that hasn't changed. However, we do know one thing: the game's development team is drawing inspiration from Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2. As you will know, Nintendo was pretty clear on the game that mostly inspired The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's development: The Elder Scrolls: Skryim. But for the sequel, the team is more inspired by what Rockstar cooked up last year, which is probably the most impressive open-world game since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

The news comes way of series producer Eiji Aonuma, who claims a lot of the younger developers on the project have been playing lots of Red Dead Redemption 2 lately, which in terms of open-world design, is pretty radically different from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

As for Aonuma, he says he's been very busy with the September-bound reimagining of Link's Awakening, and thus hasn't been playing much. That said, he has been playing the rhythm-based Cadence of Hyrule, which released this week on Nintendo Switch via the developers of Crypt of the NecroDancer.

Of course, it's interesting to hear that so many developers on the upcoming Breath of the Wild sequel are playing Red Dead Redemption 2, because it begs the question: what, if anything, will Nintendo borrow from the critically-acclaimed and best-selling game from Rockstar Games? The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a great game, but in a post-Red Dead Redemption 2 world, I think there's a lot of improvement it can make in the sequel. One of the best things about Red Dead Redemption 2 is how alive its world feels. On the other side of the coin, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild feels a bit empty and not alive. In other words, hopefully the sequel improves in this regard.

Anyway, as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think. What improvements do you want to see from the Breath of the Wild sequel?

Thanks, IGN.