The Switch 2’s first year did come with a new Zelda game, though it’s not necessarily the one diehard fans are waiting for. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment ties directly into the storyline of Tears of the Kingdom, but it’s a musou-style hack-and-slash game rather than a traditional Legend of Zelda adventure. Still, the franchise’s producer says some of that action flavor could influence the direction of the next mainline entry.
Age of Imprisonment was a collaboration between Koei Tecmo’s AAA Games Studio and the Zelda team at Nintendo, including long-time producer Eiji Aonuma. While AAA Games Studio would lead on designing features and gameplay, the Zelda team would test and give feedback. “We aimed to combine these two approaches; the Zelda-like, strategic back-and-forth of using Zonai gear and varied techniques against powerful foes with the exhilaration of musou (i.e. feeling mighty powerful as you cut down waves of weaker foes),” AAA Games Studio head Yusuke Hayashi said in a recent interview with 4Gamer, as translated by IGN.
When Nintendo would raise concerns about something, the Koei Tecmo team would come back with “proposals that elevated it into something even better,” Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi said. “The inspiration we received from this collaboration with Koei Tecmo may be reflected in the (next) Zelda we create,” Aonuma added. “Please picture this while playing Age of Imprisonment, and look forward to our Zelda.”
Is this laying the groundwork for a Devil May Cry-like evolution of the franchise, or is it just Aonuma being cheeky? He noted elsewhere in the interview that his team was hoping to be the first to release a Zelda game for Nintendo’s new hardware but were beaten to it by Koei Tecmo. “The Legend of Zelda: Age of Imprisonment is the first Zelda title released for the Nintendo Switch 2. To be honest, we wanted to bring out the ‘first’ (Zelda game on the new console),” he reportedly chuckled.
In his mind, at least, it’s clear Age of Imprisonment is a true Zelda game and not just another Warriors spin-off. From a story point of view, it’s understandable why. Anyone wanting to get the full picture of the events from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom would need to have experienced it and the previous Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity as well. Will the next Zelda game return to that world, or break the mold and start off someplace new in the Zelda timeline? Tears of the Kingdom didn’t get any DLC so hopefully that means we’ll find out the answer sooner than expected.