Earlier this morning at the Koei Tecmo presentation at the Tokyo Game Show, more information and gameplay was shown off for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. In this presentation, we got to see a lot more about the game, how it is played, story, characters and other interesting tidbits.
As told in our previous article, Age of Calamity, takes place 100 years before the story of Breath of the Wild, in which Link and Zelda go on to battle against hoards of monsters along with gaining the aid of the soon to be champions. This time we got to see more info about Impa, Zelda’s appointed guardian, and her role in what is happening in Hyrule. We also find out a little bit about the small guardian companion that appeared in the artwork for the game a few weeks ago.
Based on a small cutscene, Link is running about the midst of battle and stumbles upon a small deactivated guardian. While this is happening, Impa is being chased by some Bokoblins. As she is running she notices Link, calls out for his assistance, and throws him a Sheikah Slate. He catches it and heads to her aid. As he runs to help, the small guardian awakens and a Sheikah tower erupts from the ground, taking out the hoard of Bokoblins.
In this talk, we also get to see some gameplay of Link and Impa. Link adorns his trusty sword, shield, and bow to take down his enemies. We find out that he can shield surf to barrel down foes, slice and cut them down, and use his bow to snipe some enemies. They even add the time slowing mechanics for when he is attacking in mid-air.
Impa plays in a very interesting way compared to how she played in the original Hyrule Warriors. She uses many Sheikah and ninja-like techniques to take down her enemies. She is equipped with exploding tags, a sailcloth, knives, and varying jutsu giving her really cool abilities. The fact that she can pretty much make shadow clones and attack gives her a lot of variety.
Another new gameplay mechanic that was added was how the Sheikah Slate works in the game. It is unclear who is able to use it outside of Link, Zelda, and the other champions, but the way it works is similar to BotW with the Warriors flair. You are able to use the different runes for varying attacks and combos, like throwing a slew of bombs, to using Cryonis Rune to lift yourself up above enemies. It does have a recharge time, like in BotW, but it is going to open up a lot of interesting gameplay styles.
We also got a new trailer which has been included below:
In the trailer you got to see a bit more to the story and some of the movesets of the other champions.
The last big bit of information given was a physical look at the special addition of the game that was also mentioned in the previous article and store specific pre-order bonuses. The art plaque, sailcloth, and guardian keychain look amazing! As of this post, the special edition is only limited to Japan at this time along with the store specific pre-order bonuses. I am really hoping that they bring it to the US along with other areas of the world. There are two DLC items that are also in the game, a wooden spoon for those who purchase the game digitally, and a training sword for those who already had BotW save data on their Switch. Sadly it seems that whose who played BotW on the Wii U will miss out on that bonus.
I have linked the full Japanese presentation down below thanks to IGN
What do you think about this new info and gameplay? Let us know in the comments below!