I am pretty sure the Zelda team has heavy influence over the story for this game, to the point that it could be argued as being canon to BotW (we will see about that one).  The first Hyrule Warriors was pretty much just KT making a Warriors game with the IP.  But it was stated that they are working closely with Nintendo and the Zelda team this time around.

After putting in over 600 hours across the Wii U and Switch versions, I'm so pumped for this. The gameplay of Hyrule Warriors is so addicting to me. AND a canon story? SIGN ME UP. Oh, and IN 2 MONTHS. I cannot tell if I miss Nintendo Directs or not anymore... I mean, I do, but, this is awesome to. For me, this game makes 2020's lineup golden. I'm so stoked.

While it's a shame this and Aonuma's statements mean BOTW2 is still a long way off, as consolations go, this looks a treat.

I enjoyed the first Hyrule Warriors, and a getting a chance to play through the events of the calamity sounds awesome.

As far as it not being high enough caliber to be a holiday game, I think between the pent-up demand for Switch that they still can't quite meet, plus the combined weight of this, Mario Kart Live, etc, they'll have no trouble selling a metric fuckton of Switches this holiday even without a Pokemon/Smash tier title.

Like many others said, I really dont like wariors games. But nintendo is directly involved in this. I bet they can fix the glaring issues with theese type of game. Adding a decent story is the first thing and what better than a prequel to breath of the wild.

Maybe not A day one for me, i need more info after its out. Its looking real likely that ima get this.

I mean Animal crossing, 3D All Star, Hyrule Warriors, Pikmin 3 and the big final pokemon DLC should be enough to drive it yea. I do feel like this HW game will be more ambitious than just a normal musou since it is the idea and is also done by the Zelda team. It also got a big response online so i'm expecting it to be a atleast 3-4 millions seller.

Also, Aonuma said we would have to wait a bit longer to see more of Botw 2. I'm sure it's ready to be shown, but having a new prequel announced and coming before it, it doens't make much sense to just release a trailer. I think we will see something at the VGA this year, which will happen like 2 weeks after the release of Hyrule Warriors and will be a great timing since Sony and MS will probably get the big guns and show some next gen games.

I would love to see BOTW2 at the VGAs. I'm kinda not expecting to see it til much later though; maybe at E3 2021 if there is one. Games from the core Zelda team always take forever. At least we have this to tide us over for the meantime.

That would be way too late imo. Even botw was shown every year starting 2014 even if it got delayed several time. If they do only show it at E3 then it won't release until november next year or even 2022. Zelda have long marketing cycle. Also the rumors of a Switch pro coming mid next year, i'm assuming they would release it with a big game like Link's awakening for Lite and Botw for Switch. Only make sense they would release Botw 2 with it.

But uncertain time with covid, you could be right. But i don't want to wait that long lmao.

Oh believe me I don't want to wait that long either haha, I'm just bracing myself after what happened with BOTW (Nearly 3 years from reveal to release) and the impact of COVID plus the Zelda's team typically slow pace.

At least this game it being primarily handled by Tecmo Koei, so it shouldn't tie up too much manpower from the Zelda team, plus Monolith Soft are on hand to help out with BOTW2 development.

Age of Calamity should tide me over for a while personally as far as getting my Zelda fix.

The release date is a bit before Black Friday. My guess is this is the holiday title. I can only assume that this would have originally released October/Early November and then Mario 3D world end of November but most likely had those plans changed due to COVID.

eh, that nice and all, but I'm REALLY not a fan of musou games, even if Hyrule Warriors is one of the best musous out there.