Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was an odd game. A fun and oftentimes adorable one with a bad framerate, but at few points were you expected to take its narrative seriously. Nintendo and Koei Tecmo didn’t set out to create a canon chapter in the Zelda universe, instead using this Musou title to explore an alternate timeline where very different events take place with a mixture of both new and existing characters. It’s entertaining, but it was hard to feel invested in its tale when you knew it had no impact on Breath of the Wild. It was fanfiction.
To catch you up briefly, the game begins with a small guardian jumping through a time portal to escape the wrath of Calamity Ganon, only for some of its malice to make it through before starting to infect this new timeline. Cue Link and Zelda stumbling upon this Guardian and doing battle with this dangerous new threat. Taking place 100 years before Breath of the Wild, this is a story about the Champions told from an entirely new perspective. It allows for some lush character interactions and parts of the world we haven’t seen before, but it also weakens the impact of its predecessor by lessening the stakes and getting a smidge too silly at times.
Age of Calamity’s Non-Canon Narrative Only Hurt It In The End
Age of Calamity has some wonderful moments, especially how it explores Link and Zelda’s relationship as Knight and Princess, and how they came to befriend and work in tandem with Hyrule’s many champions. It showcased what exactly they were fighting for and ultimately lost in the base games across sprawling battlefields, but sometimes it is so eager to hurl you into massive encounters or detach itself from canon events that it’s hard not to switch off. I’m not a fan of how it tries to nullify the tragedy at the centre of Breath of the Wild, which is such a big part of why that game is so beautifully melancholic. It’s whimsical and cutesy, but it didn’t tell a story I had any interest in.
Despite some of my narrative misgivings, I’m so excited to jump back into Age of Calamity on the Switch 2 and not have it be subject to horrendous performance issues.
Nintendo and Koei Tecmo are taking a different approach with Age of Imprisonment on the Switch 2, confirming swiftly after its reveal that it will be canon to Tears of the Kingdom as it takes us back in time to the Imprisoning War at the dawn of Hyrule’s founding.
It’s easy for fans to understand why when you consider that time travel and the act of being trapped in strange new lands are key to what makes the sequel so compelling. Ahead of release, there was a naive belief that this could lead to playable Zelda, and while that wasn’t true, watching the Princess assemble forces to help Link defeat Ganon centuries in the future was riveting and tragic.
I’m not afraid to admit that I shed a tear when she turned into that dragon to roam the skies for centuries in wait for her saviour. Age of Imprisonment is set to expand on a narrative we only ever saw through scattershot memories, and now that it’s canon, I have reason to care.
But how exactly could it expand upon things, and who could we be playing as in a Musou game where combat variety is often the most important factor? Let’s have a dig and find out.
Who Is Going To Be Playable In Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment?
Following Zelda’s narration at the beginning of the trailer, we transition to a moment where she arrives in the past for the first time and meets Rauru and Sonia. The way in which the camera moves, and she begins walking forward gives me the impression that this moment will be playable. So, chances are there will be smaller narrative sequences either within a stage or separate from them. It would certainly be more immersive than loading all of your exposition into a cutscene and/or journals. I want to play as Zelda as she walks into a new yet familiar place for the first time, slowly but surely learning of the hard task before her.
We then, as expected, transition to that delicious Musou action. First up to the plate is Rauru, who wields a fluorescent Zonai spear as he slices through countless Bokoblins on the field. It is immediately reminiscent of the previous game as the scene then transitions to Zelda using a sick Hyrulian lightsaber to cut enemies down before teaming up with Rauru for their combo attack. Other playable characters featured in the reveal trailer also include Mineru, who can be seen riding around the depths in a vehicle before unleashing some vicious firepower.
I also have a hunch that Sonia will be playable in some form. While we don’t see her as such in the trailer itself, there is a brief glimpse where two hands join together before unleashing a new attack, which I believe could be Rauru and Sonia joining forces. They are lovers keen to protect Hyrule, so it makes sense they’d kick some ass when Ganondorf comes knocking.
You also have the champions of old that Zelda meets throughout Tears of the Kingdom to ask for their aid in Link’s quest, who I suspect will be both playable characters and fleshed-out narratively for the first time. While we heard their voices and saw them in cutscenes in Tears, there was little else beyond that. Nintendo and Koei Tecmo want to use this musou title as a means to expand on these personalities and cement them in the universe, which might explain why the decision was made for this story to be canon.
Age of Imprisonment Could Make Tears of The Kingdom A Better Game
This would have been the case for Age of Calamity as well, but it only made me more eager to revisit it for a similar atmosphere and versions of characters more true to themselves. Age of Imprisonment is confirmed to be canon, so I’m assuming it will take the major events that take place in Tears into account and have us live through them rather than just influence them.
We see the very beginnings of Hyrule Castle in the reveal trailer, and it’s fascinating to see it in such a different state than usual.
We will be fighting through a war that, by and large, Rauru and Sonia are expected to lose as Zelda consumes the tear around her neck to transform into an immortal dragon. While it might seem boring to already know the ending of a game like this (as is the case with every prequel ever), it offers up a challenge to Nintendo and Koei Tecmo to weave a compelling thread within these confines. It should keep them closer to the characterisations we know and love while filling in many of the blanks that were before kept ambiguous. A new vision of an older Hyrule I cannot wait to discover.
