Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: The Breath of the Wild DLC That Should've Been?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Now they can focus on the storyline.

After much searching on KoopaTV, I've noticed I've never really put much effort into writing my thoughts on KOEI TECMO GAMES's Dynasty Warriors series, which extends to Hyrule Warriors, other than me not caring for their gameplay. At all. That said, with all of the ports of Hyrule Warriors, the most a Hyrule Warriors game has ever gotten from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild were costumes for Link and for Zelda. That leaves a big gap.

Similarly, there isn't KoopaTV content about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's expansion pass, besides this article written before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild even released denouncing the expansion pass (which, despite the thrust of it being that expansion passes being on sale before you even know what's really in them is a bad thing, turned out to be prescient that it actually was a bad deal, content-wise). We did at least have a guest article from early 2018 that was tangentially upset about the lack of content in The Champions' Ballad from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's DLC Pack 2. (Though the article was FAKE NEWS in that the writer promised to talk about it further at a different date. Still hasn't happened yet.)

I mentioned those two topics above because today, Nintendo announced not only the next Hyrule Warriors game (this time, it's new and not yet another port), but it's ALSO the prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The real prequel. The one that The Champions' Ballad was supposed to be but wasn't. Here's the announcement trailer plus developer commentary, followed by MY commentary:

The trailer did almost exactly what the Persona 5 Scramble trailer did: Show very minimal gameplay, but lots of fan service, in the terms of representing fan-favourite aspects of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's lore and characterisation. (I guess there'll also be fan service of the kind that Linkle was created for, too.)

Left to right: Urbosa, Mipha, Falco, Link, Zelda, an unknown Guardian thingy, and Daruk.

Gameplay is the least important aspect for the target audience. While The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did a poor job telling a story (thanks to its open-world non-linear nature) but a decent job with world-building and lore based on events that happened a century or more before the game takes place, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is going to take place in that century ago, and thanks to its genre, it has the potential to tell a competent end-to-end story.

The millions of people who were interested in exploring that lore (hoping to do so in The Champions' Ballad instead of merely getting a few cutscenes showing it) as well as playing as the four Champions are the target here. The press release even states, “In addition to all the action, the game is loaded with a robust story that depicts the events, relationships and dramatic moments of the Great Calamity in captivating detail.”

Consider this: Unlike the first Hyrule Warriors, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity will actually be canon. For The Legend of Zelda timeline buffs, that's a big deal, since how exactly The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild fits in the timeline (or where the timeline fits with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) is one of the biggest mysteries of the franchise, up there with those evil cow-stealing aliens from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. I don't think there'll be a definitive answer, but there should be more clues. According to the video, Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda team had a very close role with KOEI TECMO on this project, so they're perfectly capable of canon timeline hints on a game that exists to tell a story.


One of Ludwig's biggest issues (and he had... several) with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was the lack of story content, so Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity should be interesting. Unfortunately, it trades one style of gameplay he dislikes with another, so... oh well. What do YOU think about the announcement, though, or any of Ludwig's analysis?


It turns out that Nintendo's marketing has tricked everyone and this game is, in fact, not a prequel re-enacting the Great Calamity.