During a Nintendo Direct presentation back in 2014, fans were shocked to see a new version of Link in aZeldaspinoff no one saw coming, a musou game for the Wii U titledHyrule Warriors. Such hack and slash 1 vs 100 games were previously mostly home toKoei Tecmo’sDynasty Warriorsseries,but collaborations have allowed a variety of spinoffs with properties such asFire Emblem,Persona 5, and maybe most notably,The Legend of Zelda, which just released its second musou game last November,Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.
While the originalHyrule Warriorsacted as a celebration of theZeldaseries as a whole, it wasn’t largely concerned with story elements. However, the announcement last September of aBreath of the Wildspinoff prequel in the form ofHyruleWarriors: Age of Calamitybrought fans of the most recent mainlineZeldatitle back to Hyrule to experience the events that took place 100 years beforeBreath of the Wild. And as the game has been out for over a month now, more details on its development have been revealed.
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A recent interview withKoei Tecmo producer Yosuke HayashionHyrule Warriors: Age of Calamityhas been published in the Japanese Nintendo magazine, Nintendo Dream. User PushDustin on Twitter has translated the interview, revealing a slew of interesting tidbits about certain design decisions made throughout the game’s development.
Much of the interview focused on fleshing out the gameplay of characters such as the game’s 4 Champions,Daruk, Revali, Urbosa, and Mipha.Hayashi stated that the Koei team worked hard alongside theZeldateam to make the characters work, and wanted them to be easy to pick up and play while still staying true to their source material. Namely, each character originally used a paraglider, but this was changed to better suit each individual character, such as Revali, who now uses his wings to fly as opposed to a paraglider. For characters like Mipha and Daruk, their weapons and other characteristics were first used as a base to develop their move-sets, with their unique mechanics being added later into the game’s development, such as Mipha’s fountains and Daruk’s magma attacks.
As for the game’s earlier characters, the team wanted to give certain feelings to them, such as giving Impa a “tricky” feeling, making Zelda feel like a “magician,” and having Link play like a more “orthodox” musou character. The interview also contains design details onother playable characters,some of which may be spoilers to players who haven’t progressed to certain points in the game.
It seems that the experiment of a more story-heavy musouZeldagame paid off for Koei Tecmo and Nintendo, asHyrule Warriors: Age of Calamitywas very well received. And although fans may have to wait a bit longer before the release ofthe sequel toBreath of the Wild,hopefullyAge of Calamitycan hold them over for the time being.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamityis available now on Nintendo Switch.
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