Age of Calamity: Pulse of the Ancient (DLC Wave 1) Revealed

Yesterday's Nintendo Direct made it sound like they are going to end things with the first Expansion Pass DLC wave for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, but luckily this wasn't the only Zelda news at that point... While the first DLC batch looks fine and already gets released in two days, it does feel somewhat underwhelming...

 

New Movesets

They made it look like Robbie and Purah are going to be playable, since they are featured very prominently in the Expansion Pass banner, but this apparently won't be happening before the 2nd DLC wave in November. The good news is that this means that they won't treat Robbie and Purah as some second-class bonus fighter, where they might get their own scenarios, cutscenes and all that, if they are really playable. The bad news is that this doesn't leave much room for anything else and that the first DLC wave doesn't come with any major additions to the roster.

Instead we get the "Battle-Tested Guardian" as a a playable character this time, as well as new weapons for Link and Zelda, the Flail and the Master Cycle respectively. The Guardian feels like an odd choice, because it's basically a "generic" enemy, where so far in Hyrule Warriors and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity every playable fighter has been a unique character with a name. But... there was also a playable Cucco, so what gives?

In the least the Guardian looks unique, where it's reminiscent of the one from the first Breath of the Wild trailer at E3 2014. It even has the same orange glow to it, instead of the purple Malice infection. On first glance it feels similar to a certain unlockable fighter from the main game, but it's bigger and could be fun to play in its own right. It's the signature enemy of Breath of the Wild after all and with that certainly a worthy addition, even if it feels unusual.

Link's Flail made out of Guardian parts looks quite crazy and is probably something that no one saw coming. It feels somewhat similar to his Gauntlet moveset from the previous game, but it also can grab things. On the one hand it's shame that Link gets a fourth moveset here, while most other characters only have one, but this is so goofy that it probably wouldn't have been a good fit for any other character anyway. And this way Link gets something that he didn't already have in Breath of the Wild...

At the same time it's nice that the Master Cycle is now a thing for Zelda, which makes perfect sense, since she's the one using the Sheikah Slate in this game. After spending so much time with Link on the Master Cycle Zero, both in Breath of the Wild and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, it will be nice to use this infamous bike with someone else instead.

Well, that's three new movesets in total and in the past Koei Tecmo liked to keep the movesets fairly balanced between the DLC packs for Hyrule Warriors and Hyrule Warriors: Legends, where there were usually two new movesets per pack, whether those were new character or weapon types. Since the second DLC wave is not supposed to have any new weapon types for existing characters, only the first one, we can probably count on three new playable character in the second DLC.

However, since the Expansion Pass can only be bought in its entirety, there is no need to balance things and they could add any number of characters to the second wave. If it's only three, Robbie, Purah and Sooga feel like the most likely candidates, while Astor might be out of luck. Well, it was already questionable how they would include him in a way that makes sense, but it's not like this has stopped them before...

But as already said, they really could add any number of characters to the last DLC. It's also possible that there will be a free bonus character addition in one of the updates, similar to Cia, Volga and Wizzro in the first game, where Sooga would be the best candidate for this, because he doesn't really need a story. Alternatively, they could also go with Beedle, for example as a free 35th Anniversary promotion.

Ancient Royal Lab Challenges

Now, this is basically a map within a map with new Quests and Challenges included. This will probably work just like the main map, but there is a clear tree here for your progress:

It seems that this will be the place where you unlock the Guardian, the Flail and the Master Cycle, which makes sense and where this can be done while you're progressing through the game, but also gets accessible early in the game, probably right after visiting Robbie and Purah in the first chapter.

There also seems to be a new temple-like stage, maybe the Forgotten Temple, which could be used for new Challenges with boss battles similar to the Sheikah Shrines, where it seems that you have to fight the new Battle-Tested Guardian first.

New Enemies and Apocalyptic Difficulty

There is also a bunch of other stuff, where they primarily have shown the new enemies, which include the higher tier Wizzrobes from Breath of the Wild, Giant Chuchus and bomb-throwing Moblins. No sign of the golden enemies still, where this seemed like a no-brainer for this DLC...

It's unclear how these enemies will be included into the game, but there aren't really many possibilities here. This could be part of the Royal Ancient Lab Challenges, but also part of the new "Apocalyptic" difficulty, probably both.

As for the new difficulty level, it would be very boring to only make it another stat increase, where you need level 100 characters and best weapons to get anything done. So, adding some more monsters and different monsters would already make this more interesting.

In addition, there is also a new "Dangerous Specimen" boss battle mode, according to the official website, where some of these monsters could be included as well. But it's not like the game really needed a boss battle mode with all those Challenges focused on boss battles already...

It's a shame that this wasn't showcased at Treehouse, so we still have to speculate about a lot of things here, but luckily we will already be able to see for ourselves on Friday.