Yesterday, Nintendo released a demo for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. In that demo, players got to experience the game’s intro as well as the first few missions, with the option to take their save data over to the final game.

It was a nice little bonus, and a great way to let players not used to the Warriors’ gameplay style try out Age of Calamity for themselves before making a purchase.

Yet demos also have one drawback for companies like this.

Namely, they’re usually easy to datamine, since irrelevant information is normally left in the files.

That’s how Pokemon Sun and Moon’s full Pokedex was uncovered the first time around. Nintendo had removed most sprites and models for unused Pokemon in it, but forgot to remove some of the Pokedex ones too.

And it seems like it might be true of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity too. That’s because dataminers have now found a list of character/map icons in the game, which appear to reveal the entire roster. Here’s the full list, as taken from a thread on the ResetEra forums:

• Link
• Impa
• Zelda
• Urbosa
• Mipha
• Revali
• Daruk
• King Rhoam
• Hestu
• Riju
• Sidon
• Teba
• Yunobo
• Great Fairy
• Master Kohga
• A Monk
• Mini Guardian
• Ganon

As you can see, it’s quite the list, and comes with a fair few surprises. For one thing, Purah and Robbie don’t seem to be playable here, at least in the base game. That’s rather unexpected if you ask us, and seems like a weird choice on Nintendo’s part.

It also throws a lot of doubt into the importance of the new masked Yiga figure, and the second in command for the organisation too, since neither of those seem to have icons here either.

Yet it’s not who’s not playable that’s strangest here. No, it’s who seems like they will be.

Since for whatever reason, the four ‘modern’ Champions also appear to have icons in the game. This doesn’t make much sense given the setting, since Prince Sidon was just a kid during the Great Calamity, whereas Riju, Teba and Yunobo were likely not even born yet.

So how would they work here? Why would they be around a hundred years before Breath of the Wild.

Well, there are two possibilities. One, they go back in time somehow and help out their ancestors in the initial war. That sounds quite crazy right now, but it’s got precedent based on the game’s intro, where the egg shaped Guardian escapes Zelda’s Study and goes back in time to help out during the final days of Hyrule’s downfall. Presumably something similar would happen here with these guys too.

Alternatively, the game itself will jump forward a hundred years at one point, and you’ll have to play as modern characters in an attempt to stop a nearly resurrected Ganon. Again, it sounds unlikely, but it’s not entirely impossible, even if it does throw a huge wrench into Age of Calamity’s core story concepts.

Regardless, there does seem to be evidence for either of these theories in the form of the opening tapestry (which shows two Champions per Divine Beast this time around):

I feel like this is important information.

The Age of Calamity tapestry has double Champions on the Divine Beasts. pic.twitter.com/oghSarkFPs

— 🎃 h9 ʎɐlɔʎʞoods ♏ (@moldyclay) October 29, 2020

So either could be plausible here.

Finally, the other character choices are a pleasant surprise. You’ve got what appears to be a villain campaign/playable villains with Master Kohga and Ganon, King Rhoam and Hestu do indeed seem to be playable warriors, and with unusual picks like a Monk, a Great Fairy and that mini Guardian itself, it seems like the core roster will be a tad more interesting than otherwise feared.

Yet is this really the full roster?

Well, it’s obviously likely to be, but we have to think of alternative explanations too. After all, the job of the media isn’t just to ‘guess’, which theories and rumours are true, it’s to try and debunk them too.

And there are multiple ways that could happen.

On the one hand, it’s worth noting that these character icons do not appear to be from a character select menu per se. No, they appear to be map icons displayed on the map during battles/missions.

As a result of that, while it’s very likely they refer to playable characters (it’s mostly those that get said icons in other Warriors games), it’s not 100% confirmed. Perhaps some of these guys fight alongside you as NPC allies. Or perhaps they just stand around, and you have to find/defend them in some way.

It’s not super likely, but it’s possible nonetheless.

It’s also possible that said icons don’t include everyone from the game too. After all, this is only a demo, and it’s entirely possible that Nintendo could have scrubbed some content from it to avoid too much leaking online. If that’s the case, it’d imply these characters are the ones that could appear early on (or were forgotten by Nintendo), whereas the likes of Purah and Robbie could be late game playable characters featured only in later missions.

Finally, even if this is all the characters in the base game, Hyrule Warriors games have always added more through DLC. Indeed, when the first game initially launched, many of the villains weren’t playable at all, with the likes of Cia, Volga and Wizro only being added as such in version 1.3.0.

Hence even if Purah and Robbie are in the base game in some fashion, it’s possible they’ll not be playable until a future update comes around.

Still, that’s everything we know from the datamine. Purah and Robbie don’t seem to be playable, whereas King Rhoam, Hestu and Master Kohga do, along with the modern champions.

So what do you think about it?

Are you happy to see this character roster? What character inclusions and exclusions are the most surprising for you overall?

Tell us your thoughts on the matter in the comments below, over on the Gaming Latest forums or on our Discord server today!

Source:

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity *SPOILER Thread* (Datamine seemingly reveals base game roster)