If you haven’t figured it out by now, Hestu’s appearance is confirmed in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity from Nintendo’s third official trailer for the game this week. A number of other features were also confirmed in new gameplay footage that included the Champions utilizing rune attacks, Link wearing different outfits from Breath of the Wild, and the fact that apparently, Gorons can fly now. Most striking of all, there was one thing that stood out the most for me watching the trailer: Hestu’s voice.
And his voice in the English translation is undeniably adorable.
It’s a good fit for the lovable big-boy Korok in my humble opinion. Aside from that, his time in the limelight also revealed an interesting tidbit of the game’s story. The guarded Princess Zelda and Urbosa encounter Hestu in a forested area, perhaps the Lost Woods. “Finally, finally, finally!” the Korok says, “somebody sees me!” He then shakes his maracas around in excitement. Prior to that, we see more Koroks appear in various places across Hyrule. Then it’s Hestu. End cut for the Koroks.
In Breath of the Wild, Hestu helps players gain more inventory space when they find his wooded brethren scattered in the Hyrulean overworld. He does this as a token of thanks for helping him recover his stolen magical maracas from monsters in a side quest. While it seems at first blush Hestu may reprise this role in Age of Calamity, it’s also possible the Korok musician could be shaking things up this time around. Could he be a playable fighter? Will other Koroks like those in the trailer assist Hestu in his attacks? Or perhaps, Hestu’s presence on the battlefield allows the player to find Koroks who grant power-ups of some kind. The answer remains to be seen. He could do something else entirely different.
Whatever it is, there’s no question now that the Big N is promoting the Breath of the Wild story pretty hard with Age of Calamity, with impressive marketing results for a prequel about a story we already know. Or do we? With the sequel to Breath of the Wild not too far off in the distance, there’s still plenty of room for creativity… including voice acting for more characters than we thought of before.
