Nintendo has used its Direct in various ways, but there have been some clear surprises, and arguably one of the biggest ones is that of Hyrule Warriors Age Of Imprisonment. The game is an extension of the Tears of the Kingdom storyline but will further break down the events of Princess Zelda’s journey into the past, where she met the original king and queen of Hyrule and their battle against the vile Ganondorf! As you would expect, this game will be all about using the powers of your characters to wipe out scores of enemies with extreme prejudice as you attempt to clear maps and take on objectives to move to the next mission.
While we don’t have all the information yet, we can say that there are obvious elements from the trailer that we can take note of. For example, not unlike the previous entry in the series, Zelda will be a focal point. In fact, if this plays out like one would expect, you could argue that Link won’t even be in the game at all! Remember, in the main story, Link never went to the past; only Zelda did. As such, he wouldn’t have any reason to be in the game outside of time travel shenanigans. Then again, we did see that in the previous title, so that might be something to pay attention to.
As for the story, after Ganondorf gets resurrected in the present, Zelda is accidentally sent to the past via her powers to try and save Hyrule from the past version of Ganondorf, while also fixing the Master Sword that was broken in the present. We saw via the various “Dragon Tears” that Zelda became friends with the original king and queen of Hyrule and guided them as best she could to find the others who could help them wield incredible power against Ganondorf. While they were unsuccessful in the end, they were able to seal Ganondorf away, and that gave Zelda enough time to literally become a dragon and rebuild the Master Sword so that Link could get it in the present.
As such, all the characters that were a focus in the past will be playable. We might even get to see a few playable levels as Ganondorf! We could also see some “alternate endings,” not unlike what happened before. It’s all up in the air right now. However, what we can say is that Hyrule Warriors Age Of Imprisonment will be released later this year on Nintendo Switch 2.
