Been playing a ton of BOTW lately, and have given this issue quite a lot of thought. For argument's sake, I'm assuming that Aonuma's comment means that BOTW 2 will have the same map, and be in the same world (which might not even be true). When I first saw this, I was disappointed. I thought it would feel like I'm doing the same thing over again just a few years later (Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon says hello). But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the massive potential for improving the game even with the same world.
For some perspective, I should tell you that Breath of the Wild is my favorite game ever, and though I haven't played every game, I do consider it to be the greatest game of all-time (hence my new avatar). So when I think about the sequel, I'm thinking about it in terms of the utterly gigantic shoes it has to fill. With that said, BOTW's world leaves plenty of untapped potential for the sequel to harness. Let me list just a few examples to illustrate this:
1. Underground: BOTW had very little underground areas, and I often found myself wishing it had more. Underground areas can greatly add to the game, even if they aren't dungeons. This wouldn't be too relevant if they end up doing a Dark World kind of thing, but otherwise they can certainly add a lot this way.
2. New Areas: Kind of obvious, but the world won't be exactly the same. Whatever new additions they make, even if they only make up a small percentage of the whole world, can drastically improve the game.
3. Fill the Emptiness: This aspect is far and away the biggest source of potential for the sequel to improve upon BOTW. Most of BOTW's world was empty, with only a repetitive Korok seed to give it something to do. There were so many ruins with nothing going on, so many hills and mountains with nothing there, and so much of the world felt dead. Making every part of the world feel lively, but not chaotic, would be an enormous advancement from BOTW to the sequel.
Making these improvements to the world, along with other gameplay improvements such as a better final boss battle, more story focus, much greater enemy variety, better character development, and better side quests can make this game put Breath of the Wild, as amazing as it is, to shame.
So I'm not worried about returning to the same Hyrule anymore. As long as the developers take their time, play smart, and realize the game's potential, it will be quite amazing. Even for those of us who explored every square centimeter of Hyrule in Breath of the Wild.
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