After the recent (and frustratingly vague) Breath of the Wild 2 delay, The Legend of Zelda fans are speculating even more eagerly about what could be in store for Link and Zelda’s next adventure. Nintendo itself has kept a tight lid on news of the sequel, letting almost nothing slip outside of the few trailers it’s released for the game. Even the sequel’s actual name is still a secret. Of course, that hasn’t stopped fans from poring over every scrap of news to find hints of what we’ll be doing in BOTW 2. Now, one fan may have stumbled upon a major development, courtesy of an Italian voice actor.
As spotted by ResetEra user Alexander_Wand, Italian Zelda YouTube channel Lega Hyrule recently posted a video including a short clip of voice actor Pietro Ubaldi, who voices the Goron Champion Daruk in BOTW. Ubaldi reveals that he’s wrapped up his recording sessions for Daruk, letting one other juicy detail slip. The Daruk voice actor isn’t just reprising his role from BOTW, he’s also voicing Daruk’s ancestor. Ubaldi says he doesn’t remember the ancestor’s name but calls them (through translation) “a bit more serious Daruk.”
While the lack of a name means Daruk’s ancestor could be anyone, Lega Hyrule suggests one particularly intriguing possibility. The mystery character could be the original pilot of Daruk’s Divine Beast, Rudania, who used the massive machine in the war against Calamity Ganon 10,000 years before BOTW.
Regardless of who this ancestor is, it implies that there’s a look back in time in some form coming in the sequel. It may just be spirits from the past speaking to Link in the present, but there’s a plausible (and far more exciting) second option. Breath of the Wild 2 could send Link back in time.
The idea that time travel will be part of BOTW 2’s plot isn’t a new theory. The game’s reveal trailer showed what looks like the corpse of Ganon in a tomb, held in place by a glowing hand that appears to grab Link a moment later. An E3 2021 BOTW 2 trailer shows Link sporting a wild mane of hair and a toga, his right arm resembling the one seen in the reveal. Fans immediately connected those two pieces of information with the Hyrule shown in the second trailer, where the action with Link in his new duds takes place on floating islands not seen in BOTW. A glimpse at Link’s new abilities in the trailer also seems to show they’ll include some time-manipulation elements.
Ubaldi’s comments throw even more weight behind the BOTW 2 time travel theory. As far as we know, Link never met this ancestor of Daruk’s, so it’s unlikely they’ll appear in flashbacks. Instead, Link could meet them directly in the past, perhaps even fighting by their side in the battle against Calamity Ganon.
Even the reveal that new lines are being recorded for Daruk is a bit more interesting than it seems at first. Lega Hyrule’s points out this is a “strange thing in itself since at the end of Breath of the Wild he disappears, he goes to the afterlife.” Indeed, after Link conquers the Divine Beast Rudania, Daruk’s spirit is freed, passing to the other side with the other former Champions. That doesn’t mean his spirit couldn’t return, but with time travel already seeming to be a part of the game, we could just as easily encounter Daruk in his own time.
The sudden introduction of time travel in a fantasy game may sound odd, but longtime Zelda fans know it’s an old trick for the series. Several games have featured time travel, most notably Ocarina of Time, where Link zips back and forth through the timeline over the course of the game. A field trip 10,000 years into the past in BOTW 2 would be a much bigger jump for sure but still falls well within the established Zelda canon.
Of course, this is all just speculation until Nintendo decides the game is ready to show again, so take it all with a grain of salt. Pondering over it won’t make the wait for BOTW 2 any easier, but it at least gives fans a new theory to pick to pieces until it’s released.
