Sunday, January 23, 2022

Age of Calamity: Unplanned Expansion Pass

Terrako looking at the camera

With Hyrule Warriors, Hyrule Warriors: Legends and Breath of the Wild we learned about their DLC expansions quite early, with some of them even before the release of the game, where those were obviously planned some time before launch. This was different for Age of Calamity, however, where it took months before we heard anything. Now, a recent interview with Nintendo Dream (as translated by NintendoEverything) throws some light on the situation.

In fact, the development didn't even start until one month after the game's release, where the team got already disbanded and had moved on to other projects. But they received so much feedback asking for DLC on the game's website that they decided to bring everyone back and work on the game some more.

It's really nice to hear that Nintendo and Koei Tecmo were listening to the fans here, but at the same time it's weird that they didn't plan on making DLC in the first place, since such a title lends itself to expansions. It's a no-brainer, really. And even with Robbie, Purah, and Sooga now finally playable in the game, there are still some more boxes left to check (see more ideas for DLC).

With most Nintendo games these days there is always this little bit left. You know, some obvious omissions that would make a game feel more complete, but they simply aren't happening. And that's not even talking about any more playable characters, where the roster feels very complete for what they were going for, but it's often about small things, like Zelda's Royal Attire (which exists in the game's code as a playable costume), or alternative ways of getting some of the DLC's one-time weapons. Let's hope that the Japanese fans keep asking for such things on that website.

The interview clearly states that they have wrapped up once more, however, so unless they decide to bring the team back together a third time this was probably it and we shouldn't be expecting any more updates or DLC. But let's see...

It's also interesting how much priority this had over any other project. Well, it's the best-selling Warriors game to date, so making DLC for this probably was more important than whatever the different team members were going to do next.

2 comments:

Raul said...

I know you're not a Pokemon guy but any opinion on Legends Arceus?
I think it's pretty cool that BotW has been such a big influence and it hasn't even been that many years since it came out. And Pokemon doesn't even have to be so ambitious since the games will sell based on brand alone.

TourianTourist said...

No, sorry, I don't really have an opinion on this game. But you're right, there has been obviously a big influence here and it's by far not the only game that was wildly influenced by BotW. Genshin Impact is probably the biggest example here and Horizon: Forbidden West now copies the main mechanics with the climbing and gliding.