Given that Tears of the Kingdom used a similar memory setup as Breath of the Wild, we always wondered when an Age of Calamity like game would be announced for that story. After all, the Imprisoning War was an extremely interesting looking event in game, with a Ganondorf far more cunning and powerful than anything in the present day.
So now we’re happy to see that exactly that has happened. Nintendo and Koei Tecmo have now announced Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment for Switch 2, complete with a ‘canonical’ story set to explain the Imprisoning War and its events. Here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen it already:
As you can tell, it looks exactly what you’d expect it to be. Rauru, Sonia and the ancient Sages are playable characters along with Zelda, you’re fighting against Ganondorf and his hordes of monsters from Tears of the Kingdom, and the classic gameplay seems like it’ll entirely remain intact.
It’s everything you’d expect from a game like this, and it looks/runs better than ever due to the new console.
That said, it still raises a few important questions. Those being, how accurate are the canon claims here?
Because let’s face it, Age of Calamity was also touted as the ‘backstory’ for Breath of the Wild, the game that’d explain the Great Calamity and let us play through its canonical events.
But that didn’t really happen. It sorta started as such, but Terrako’s interference and the addition of the modern champions quickly turned the story from a downer to a happy ending, and made things a bit more fanservice heavy than some people may have wanted.
So, we’re curious how much of this is true here as well. Will Nintendo really stick with the Tears of the Kingdom backstory? Or will there be some other twist that somehow brings Link and the modern day folks back into the fold and ‘saves the day’ once again?
Especially given that the Imprisoning War as is, doesn’t really provide a whole lot when it comes to fan favourite characters and story beats. Link doesn’t appear at all, since it’s only Zelda that gets sent back in time. Modern-day characters like the modern sages/champions and Hestu have no reason to appear, since it’s thousands of years before any of them were even born. And the old sages may be unique, but they’ve also got all the personality of a toaster. They don’t really say anything important in cutscenes, don’t get much characterisation beyond wanting to save the world, and are so generic design wise that we don’t even see their faces at any point.
Hence, we’re fascinated to know exactly how Nintendo will build out the roster here. They’ve got Rauru, Sonia and Zelda as main protagonists and those work well, you’ve got the fantastic Mineru to add some mech action and tech skills to the mix and the sages definitely help fill the champion roles from Age of Calamity, but there’s literally no one else of note shown in the backstory for Tears of the Kingdom to draw from. Will we randomly see a Korok character? Master Kohga? One of the ancient Sheikah? The hero from the Ancient Hero’s Aspect and tapestry?
Regardless, we’ve finally got our Hyrule Warriors game for the Imprisoning War, and it’ll launch on Switch 2 in Winter 2025. So what do you think about it? Are you excited for a new one? What characters could make an appearance in a title like this one, given everyone from Tears of the Kingdom has no reason to exist in the game?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Discord server today!
Source:
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment – Nintendo Direct | Nintendo Switch 2 (YouTube)