Age of Calamity: Expansion Pass Announced

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity has been released in November last year and in yesterday's Nintendo Direct it was finally confirmed that the game will see further support for the span of one entire year. For this it's getting an "Expansion Pass", which seems to be very similar to the Expansion Pass that got made for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

There are two waves of DLC – one in June and one in November. Both come with new fighters, but the first one will focus on adding new challenges and challenging enemies, while the second will focus on expanding the story. You cannot purchase these two DLC packs individually, you can only buy the full Expansion Pass for about 20$/€.

This is pretty much exactly like the Expansion Pass for Breath of the Wild worked, which shouldn't really be surprising when you consider that Age of Calamity is entirely based on that Zelda game. They clearly took some inspirations here.

Nintendo has roughly mapped what each part of the DLC will contain, so let's go over this and compare this to our DLC predictions from last month.

 

Purchase Bonus (May 28th):

• Newly added weapon for Link
• Newly added costume for Link

It's a little bit weird that we won't get these right away. It would have been good timing to give us an earlier update for the game to fix some issues and maybe improve the performance somewhat. But it seems like we'll have to wait three more months for anything to happen, which is a shame...

I've seen people expecting the "Master Cycle Zero" here, but this bonus is only a new weapon for Link's existing weapon types, not a new weapon type. So, it's a similar bonus to the Lucky Ladle and Training Sword that we've already gotten. The Spring-Loaded Hammer comes to mind, which can already be found in the game's data...

As for the costume, it really could just be the Old Shirt and Well-Worn Trousers for Link. Or they could go with something more creative here, like the Phantom Armor. The Ancient Armor set could be a possibility, but this would be the same bonus as for the second Fighters Pass from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and it's probably tied into the following DLC pack...

Wave 1 (June 2021):

• Expanded roster
• Newly added weapon types
• New challenges in the Royal Ancient Lab
• Newly added challenging enemies

Well, they are very unspecific here when it comes to the total number of new fighters, but this seems to be the pack where add Purah and Robbie as playable characters, which are heavily featured in the announcement trailer and the artwork for the Expansion Pass. In this trailer we can also see sketches of the Ancient Short Sword, as well as some new type of flying Guardian. These are most likely things Purah and Robbie have been working on to help out.

 

The new "weapon types" certainy refer to new movesets for existing characters, similar to how Link and Zelda already have them. So, this is where you place the Master Cycle for Link, which seems to be one of the biggest omissions from Breath of the Wild overall and could lead to some really fun moveset.

Likewise, they could do something with horses for either Link and Zelda, reminiscent of Epona in the first ever DLC for Hyrule Warriors. It's hard to imagine anything for the other characters, really, mostly because their movesets already cover pretty much everything you'd expect from them. The Champions are also all treated as equally important and only one of them getting another moveset therefore wouldn't feel right. And all the later characters were either meant to be a bonus, a surprise or both, where it doesn't feel likely that any of them would get a second weapon type at all...

So, this leaves pretty much Link, Zelda and Impa as the primary candidates of receiving additional weapon types. Maybe Purah and Robbie come up with some fancy technological stuff for Impa, who could use one of those Sheikah Orbs somehow...? We'll see...

The "challenges in the Royal Ancient Lab" make it sound like the Royal Ancient Lab will become its own point on the map with some special play features, similar to the Meditative Training. It could also lead to a series of normal Challenges or both.

But this might be where you're earning some smaller rewards, like new weapons and outfits for Link and maybe also the others. Those are not explicitly mentioned in the DLC description, but it feels like they would use a DLC focused on the Ancient Lab, Robbie and Purah to at least bring back the Ancient Armor set, as well as the Ancient Short Sword, Ancient Bladesaw and Ancient Spear. Like the Spring-Loaded Hammer, these weapons are already all in the game's data.

The new "challenging enemies" will most likely turn out to be the golden enemies from the Master Mode for Breath of the Wild, which was also part of the first DLC pack, The Master Trials. In addition there could be the stronger types of the Wizzrobes and Guardian Scouts as well. How they will get into play is a different question, however, where it might be that there's a fifth difficulty level now that does exactly that...

They also might be tied into the new Royal Ancient Lab challenges, where it's also possible that Purah and Robbie came up with entirely new Guardians for training purposes.

Wave 2 (November 2021):

• New character vignettes / episodes
• Newly added stages
• Expanded roster
• New battle skills for existing characters

"Character vignettes" might be just a sketchy translation for the English version, where the German one is speaking of "character episodes" instead. And both of this is probably referring to new story scenarios that are focused on specific characters, similar to Cia's and Linkle's Tale in Hyrule Warriors and Hyrule Warriors: Legends.

The first character who comes to mind here is of course Astor, where we could learn where he came from in some sort of prologue chapter. This could also go hand in hand with adding Sooga as a playable character as well and maybe even Harbinger Ganon, though the latter isn't as likely for reasons stated in our previous predictions.

One of the biggest fan favorites still missing from Breath of the Wild, who could potentially also come with new story scenarios, is with all certainty Kass, the Rito minstrel. This could be another time traveling story, where he studies the birth of a new age and might even get to meet his younger teacher.

What supports the theory that we're indeed getting new chapters and scenarios here is the fact that they will be adding new stages as part of this wave as well, which is exciting news and actually a novelty for Hyrule Warriors DLC. They could have just re-used the existing stages somehow, so it's nice to see that Koei Tecmo will continue the trend of offering new battlefields on each step of the story. Or at least on most steps, since they could go both ways here and also re-use some older battlefields for the new scenarios.

They have covered most parts of the Hyrule from Breath of the Wild already, but there are still some areas left, like the Gerudo Highlands, most of the Hebra Mountains, the Tabantha Tundra, Eldin Mountains with the Thyphlo Ruins, Mount Lanayru and Lanayru Promenade, Faron Grasslands and more... So, they are not out of possibilities for new battlefields just yet.

The part that certainly raises the most question marks are the "new battle skills for existing characters". This could simply mean that you're able to upgrade your weapons beyond level 30, which unlocks new special weapon seals. But this would be really lame and not something you'd mention in the same vein as new fighters and battlefields. It would also be something that you'd expect from a free update and not paid DLC...

But new battle skills sounds more like something like the Sheikah Slate Runes, which every character can use in battle and where every character brings his own unique twist to this. Or like the ZR character abilities that every character has... Maybe using either L or R will bring up the option to trigger something new with the ZR and ZL buttons respectively. Or they'll use the left analogue stick button somehow. No matter how they will implement this, it will be highly interesting to see what this is all about.