We’ve talked about the characters, the monsters, and so much more from the Tokyo Game Show Hyrule Warriors stream, but I’ve been poring over the details related to the Breath of the Wild setting to piece out map design and gameplay relations. We know when this game takes place on the timeline, but let’s talk about where it takes place in the world.
As you can see from my very roughly overlaid image, a few key locations can help us get a general sense of the scale of the (presumably) first level in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. The shapes are a bit off; the Fountain and Sheikah tower should be further east. Lon Lon Ranch, however, is already too far east. Accurate scale changes made for gameplay aside, I think this is a spectacular recreation of the Hyrule Field we’ve spent countless hours rummaging through.
My main points of reference are used not just for their immediate identity, but for their importance to the past and future of Hyrule. In Impa’s introductory cutscene, we see the Sheikah Slate summon a tower right up from the ground. I didn’t even necessarily think about it until I was trying to fit the other pieces together, but that is the Central Hyrule Tower used to unveil the vast center of the world map. With that piece in place, it was easy to see the relation to the fountain you need to reach for one of the memories in Breath of the Wild, but also the ruins of Lon Lon Ranch. While they didn’t visit the latter area in the demo, the circular design of the horse racing track is unmistakable. I’m sure we’re all excited to see what changes they will make to show Hyrule before the 100 years of decay.
While this stage is south of the main town, there are still plenty of structures still standing. When I was looking at them, I was immediately reminded of this artwork of Hyrule Castle Town from the Creating a Champion book. The vivid colors of the building rooftops and the countless market stalls are all found in the gameplay trailer, and I think a lot of this “before it all went bad” concept art will be a great place to start getting ideas of what we may see elsewhere.
During the trailer, we saw Link scooping up various crafting resources as he took down enemies and busted open treasure chests. Moblin parts, critters, and food all showed up while Link explored the map. Interestingly, one of the Moblin’s skull dens was on the map inside what looked like a little barbarian encampment. In the video, Link demolishes the whole rock with a surge of bombs to reveal one of their trademark skull treasure chests. Between the demolished skull rock and numerous falling trees, it looks like this game is full of destructible elements. And it’s not just for looks, as destroying trees harvests wood, just like in Breath of the Wild proper. There’s a lot of work going in here to make the rules of this game more recognizable to players of the Switch launch game than for people who played the previous Hyrule Warriors.
In fact, for the most part, I could easily see this game being more of a proper Breath of the Wild series title than a Dynasty Warriors spin-off. Of note, there were no structures that equated to Keeps; no square rooms/buildings that you clear enemies out of until you can claim it for yourself. I would have assumed this to be relevant to this being a story-based mission where they want to focus on different aspects, but the structures just don’t exist. Even on missions in Hyrule Warriors that don’t require taking Keeps, the big square rooms are still prominently displayed on the map.
The original Hyrule Warriors also featured materials for crafting potions, creating badges for characters, and weapons for upgrading and fusing. While it’s probably safe to assume the standard materials you pick up in Age of Calamity are for making some kind of potions, and perhaps upgrading heroes, I found the lack of weapon pick-ups curious; especially when tied to the preorder and save-file unlock bonus weapons (the Lucky Ladle and Wooden Sword, respectively.) Are weapons still breakable as they were in Breath of the Wild, or will there still be a fusing system? Or are weapons now just skins? At the end of the gameplay demo, we also see Link pick up a Fire Rod from a Wizrobe, but it appears to have an ammo bar of some kind. Are there different sub-weapons with limited use? There’s plenty to be curious about!
It’s going to be exciting to see what other details from the gameplay do and do not carry over from both Hyrule Warriors and Breath of the Wild in the short months leading to the game’s November release. I’m as excited as anyone for new character announcements, but the settings and mechanics are equally important for me.
