It’s not the only musou game I’ve played this year, but it’s a helluva lot better than the other one.
- Release year: 2025
- Developer: Koei Tecmo, AAA Games Studio
- Platform: Switch 2
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is the third game in the Hyrule Warriors series, if you don’t count all the re-releases of the first game, and it’s kind of the fourth game in the “Wild” era of the Legend of Zelda series. It’s not my favourite of either category, not by a long shot, but it is a lot of fun to play, and it does a great job of filling in a lot of the story and character that was desperately missing from Tears of the Kingdom.
To that end, Age of Imprisonment tells the tale of what happened to Zelda after she travelled back in time at the start of Tears of the Kingdom. Or, moreso, it fleshes out the details of what happened during that era. We get a much better idea how Ganondorf seized control over Hyrule, what happened during the imprisoning war, and how Rauru and the sages finally managed to put an end to it. And also it actually gives Rauru and those sages a lot more screentime and personality (and names) than Tears of the Kingdom did.
There is also a fun additional story that follows a Korok named Calamo and a mysterious Zonai construct as they travel about and cross paths with Zelda, Rauru and the the gang. Despite seeming like they would be almost more comic relief than anything, this duo actually ended up being my favourite characters in the game, and they really added a lot to the climax and ending. Like, if they had been absent, I don’t think that I would have found the finale nearly as satisfying as I did.
The gameplay is pretty standard Warriors-style hack-and-slash action. So you run around, beating up hundreds of weak little monsters, then come up against some stronger monsters, and when the story calls for it, an actual boss from time to time. Unlike the original Hyrule Warriors, there really isn’t much focus on capturing bases in this one, and I feel like that’s a bit of a miss. Age of Imprisonment’s missions are all pretty much the same formula, and it could have used a little more variety in objectives. It’s still fun, but could have been more fun.
There’s also a sizeable roster of characters to play with. Half of it is comprised of important, story-centric characters like Zelda, Rauru, and Calamo, while the other half is composed of more generic citizens of Hyrule. It was kind of weird to see all these “lesser” characters at first, but they all play fairly differently, and as such you’re guaranteed to find at least character from any given race you really like to play as. My personal favourites were the mysterious construct, the Gerudo sage Ardi, and the Zora sage Qia.
Age of Imprisonment also has an absolutely massive amount of content to play through. The main story is 6 chapters long, and five of those chapters are made up of multiple missions that take an average of about half an hour each. Then every time you clear a main mission, it seems like about a dozen sub-missions appear on the map. Some of those are shorter combat stages, and some of them just require you to turn in some resources to give one of your characters an upgrade. And then you beat the game and the map gets completely covered in additional things to do. Again, it’s not quite as dense as the dozens of adventure maps in the original Hyrule Warriors, but you certainly get your money’s worth from this one!
I’ll say it again, Age of Imprisonment doesn’t really hit the heights of the games it’s derived from, but it’s definitely solid when judged on its own merits. I very much appreciate how it fills in Tears of the Kingdom’s backstory and then some, and the gameplay is a little repetitive but has enough different characters to mess around with and carrots to chase that it never gets boring. I’ve happily sunk more than 50 hours into it already, and I fully intend to keep going until it’s 100% cleared.
