When Hyrule Warriors Age Of Imprisonment was announced at the first Nintendo Switch 2 Nintendo Direct, many were surprised. The game will follow Princess Zelda and others from the first Kingdom of Hyrule as they attempt to stop Ganondorf and his reign of terror. Timeline-wise, this takes place during the events of Tears of the Kingdom via Zelda’s time-traveling adventure. Given the success of the last game in this collaboration with Nintendo, it makes sense that Koei Tecmo would be allowed to make another game that could surprise players with its depth and amaze people at how fun it is to control these warriors and how easy it is to wipe out scores of enemies with a single attack.
However, what might surprise you more is that, according to the head of the dev team making Hyrule Warriors Age Of Imprisonment, the title wasn’t even supposed to come to the Nintendo Switch 2. Instead, like certain other games, it was initially planned to be on the OG Switch. Yosuke Hayashi revealed this in a chat with Famitsu:
“When this project first started, we were developing it as a Nintendo Switch game for a while. We changed it to Nintendo Switch 2 midway through, and just by transferring what we had been creating up until then to Nintendo Switch 2, the number of enemies that appeared and the frame rate changed dramatically, and the game simply became a lot more fun. We were also surprised at how much the game’s fun could change thanks to the hardware.”
There’s plenty to unpack here, including many of you wondering why it would be on the Nintendo Switch first versus the Switch 2. The answer is that the last game, which was incredibly well-received and sold well, was on the Switch. Plus, Zelda’s adventure in the past happened on the Switch in 2023, so it would make sense that they would want to pair that with the game that would expand her adventure further.
However, as many have noted, the Nintendo Switch 2 is a true upgrade over the OG Switch and allows for not only deeper graphics but faster processing power, which can be used to make worlds feel even bigger and within reach while also expanding what you can have on-screen at the same time.
The Koei Tecmo team definitely made the right call with the shift to the new system, and now, they’ll have the freedom and ability to make this game as big and epic as they want without having to sacrifice anything.
