Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment – 7 Key Changes From the First Game

[Editor's Note: If you'd similar much in-depth hands-on impressions of Age of Imprisonment, cheque retired our caller preview.]

It’s clip to spell backmost – mode backmost – with Zelda successful Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Set successful the past past, during the founding of Hyrule, this hack-and-slash enactment crippled volition pit the Princess and her allies against monolithic armies successful their warfare against the Demon King Ganondorf. After respective trailers, aggregate runs of their hands-on demo astatine Tokyo Game Show, and probably excessively overmuch clip going implicit footage frame-by-frame, I’ve travel distant with 7 cardinal changes from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity that you should cognize earlier starting successful Age of Imprisonment.

1) This is simply a True Prequel

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity had a amusive story: reliving the warfare betwixt The Champions and Calamity Ganon. Set 100 years earlier The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it was an accidental to walk extended clip with instrumentality favourite characters similar Urbosa and Daruk, and instrumentality power of the Divine Beasts successful the war. The lone problem? It divided disconnected into a abstracted broadside story, making it non-canon to BoTW. That’s conscionable good for folks who emotion a bully filler episode, but for those of america invested successful the analyzable and often contradictory overarching Zelda story, that was a spot of a bummer. Fortunately for america lore Hounds, Age of Imprisonment is confirmed to beryllium canon to the Tears of the Kingdom story. That means our escapade with Zelda, Rauru, Queen Sonia volition archer america precisely however this past warfare with Ganondorf played out.

2) Combat is Evolving

The hack-and-slash combat astatine the halfway of Hyrule Warriors is live and well, and it’s evolving further acknowledgment to each caller Unique Skills. These peculiar moves are tailored towards circumstantial situations and fto you execute an aerial attack, targeted toward leaping of flying enemies, and a straightforward thrust onslaught to usage against charging enemies. As the sanction implies, these are unsocial to each character. Zelda, for example, tin unleash a barrage of Light Arrows from her Bow of Light to bring down flyers, oregon usage Piercing Light connected charging enemies, blasting them with a beam of airy fired from the extremity of her sword. These are beardown options that volition reward making the close decisions rapidly successful the vigor of battle, and if utilized correctly volition bash contiguous harm to the Weak-Point gauges of tougher enemies, mounting you up for devastating Weak Point attacks.

3) Sync Strikes are your Ace successful the Hole

Zelda won’t beryllium warring alone, and the mode her allies origin into battles is evolving acknowledgment to the caller team-up attacks. This goes beyond the elemental souped-up peculiar attacks from musou games of old, arsenic present the pairs of warriors employment unsocial tactics erstwhile paired unneurotic – to devastating effects. Two examples I saw successful my hands-on demo were Zelda paired with Raru firing a powerful, aimable beam of axenic airy that tears done enemies, and Zelda with Mineru summoning Mineru’s hulking conception to usage arsenic an enemy-smashing battlemech. Whether it’s each pairing connected conscionable prime compatible duos, it’s wide Zelda and institution volition person a monolithic array of moves to combat backmost against Ganondorf and his army.

4) New Hardware Means New Tricks

Age of Imprisonment is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2, which means it takes afloat vantage of the much almighty hardware. While I haven’t done a afloat accent trial conscionable yet to spot however acold I tin propulsion the enactment earlier the framerate breaks down, I was impressed successful my hands-on demo with however good it looked and ran. Also, warring thousands of bokoblins is much amusive with a friend, and Age of Imprisonment makes that easier acknowledgment to GameShare. The thought is beauteous simple: if 1 subordinate has a Switch 2 and a transcript of Age of Imprisonment, past different subordinate tin beryllium their co-op assemblage by joining the league from their ain Switch oregon Switch 2. Just support successful caput that the league belongs to the subordinate doing the sharing, truthful erstwhile they halt playing the league ends for some players.

5) Zonai Devices

So overmuch of what made Tears of the Kingdom peculiar was the mode you could find and usage Zonai devices – past instrumentality parts – to assistance your adventure. You tin bash that present too, arsenic demonstrated erstwhile I tried retired a Flame Emitter. This fto maine fry my enemies with an aimable watercourse of occurrence erstwhile I held it. It could besides beryllium activated and dropped connected the crushed to pain everything astir it. I’ve thrown clip bombs into the rima of a Frox, and watched successful trailers arsenic Zelda combined the upwind from a sideways instrumentality with a Shock Emitter to make a monolithic electrical cyclone.

6) The World Above and Below

Our full demo took spot successful the Depths, successful the country conscionable beyond Mineru’s Lab. I didn’t get to spot a map, but I bash cognize that Age of Calamity covered the full overworld, and the Depths spans an country conscionable arsenic large. That perchance doubles wherever levels could instrumentality place, and that’s earlier factoring successful the Sky Islands, places we cognize from anterior trailers wherever we volition beryllium fighting. Taken together, determination is simply a batch of imaginable assortment for wherever levels volition instrumentality place, and it’s just to wonderment conscionable however large Zelda’s combat successful the past ancient volition be.

7) Zelda and Link

Zelda, contempt her rubric relation successful the series, has astir ever been relegated to, astatine best, a secondary character, and astatine worst an off-screen information for Link connected his adventures. While she was the prima of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, her mostly non-combat relation successful a retro-style escapade stands successful stark opposition to her spot successful Age of Imprisonment, wielding a sword arsenic the pb quality arsenic the vanguard successful battle. Link, meanwhile, is successful the “present” galore centuries aft the Imprisoning War takes place. While we person seen a conception with a strikingly Link-like visage amusement up successful trailers and quality art, we cognize this volition beryllium rare, and for Hyrule Warriors first, a lawsuit of Zelda taking the pb portion Link steps retired of the spotlight.

Even these 7 items hardly scratch the aboveground erstwhile it comes to what’s caller successful The Legend of Zelda: Age of Imprisonment, similar a Korok warrior joining the fray, oregon an each caller formed of Champions to support Hyrule alongside Zelda. Fortunately you won’t request to hold overmuch longer to uncover each the secrets from the large warfare adjacent the founding of Hyrule. The Legend of Zelda: Age of Imprisonment launches connected November 6, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2.