The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild continues 2016’s best gaming trend

The Game Awards 2016 played host to two separate teasers for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but it’s the first and much shorter of the two that we’re still replaying. There’s a very important reason for that: The briefer clip, above, introduces to us a very, very sweet dog.

Joining Link’s group of animal friends is this unnamed pupper, this good boy, this majestic canine. We’re not sure of its gender or breed, nor do we know who the dog belongs to. But unknowns we damned, the fans want more.

The pup appears only briefly, trailing behind Link and his trusty steed. But to see the dog is to know the dog, according to those watching, and to know the dog is enough to make them want Breath of the Wild even more than before.

Not that we needed more reasons to put next year’s Breath of the Wild on our wishlists. The rest of the two trailers demonstrate that the next Zelda game has plenty else to offer. The second, longer video is a “let’s play”-style tease, and it shows Link hacking and slashing away at a variety of goons.

This is all much less cute than a beautiful dog chilling out as the sun sets, of course. We’re pretty obsessed with this cute boy, but previous Zelda games have featured furry four-legged friends in the past, like Twilight Princess’ Wolf Link and the terriers in Majora’s Mask.

Other otherwise non-dog-related games have featured great pups this year in particular, much to our delight, from Final Fantasy 15 to Far Cry Primal to Watch Dogs 2. Adding some animals to the mix is an adorable way to add some sweetness and levity to these otherwise stressful action experiences — assuming the dog survives, of course. If Nintendo dares to harm even a hair on this fluffy baby, they’ll have to answer to us for it.

We may have to wait until 2017 to find this out, or if we can even pet the dog in this Wii U and Nintendo Switch game, but whatever the case may be: Sold.