Nintendo Announces Breath of the Wild’s Season Pass!

Nintendo announced that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will be getting a season pass. Just…let that sink in for a second…

Starting when the game launches on March 3, players will be able to purchase an Expansion Pass for $19.99. This pass will add two new sets of DLC to be released at a later date. The first content pack will feature a new hard mode, a Cave of Trails challenge, and a new feature for the in-game map (there’s no word on what this new feature is exactly). The second one, launching this Holiday, will add new challenges that will let players enjoy a new dungeon and a new original story.

“The world of Hyrule, which we created for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, is so large and vibrant that we wanted to offer more for players to experience within it,” said Nintendo developer Eiji Aonuma, the longtime producer of the series. “With this new Expansion Pass, we hope that fans will play, explore and enjoy the game even more.”

While those two packs will come at a later time, upon release the pass will immediately make available three new treasure chests in the game’s Great Plateau area; one of which contains a Nintendo Switch t-shirt for Link to wear. The other chest will include “useful items”.

All and all, I don’t know how I feel about this expansion pass. The contents seem lean (beyond a new dungeon and story) or vague (map features?). It’s not like The Legend of Zelda needed extra content after launch to warrant a purchase. Here’s hoping Nintendo knows what they are doing. I’d hate for them to start borrowing, what seems like, unscrupulous techniques of boosting sales from other publishers.