Echoes of Wisdom ~ Official Timeline Placement

The Japanese Zelda website has seen an update of its official timeline, which now includes Echoes of Wisdom. As a Zelda fan who's into this stuff, it's not all too surprising that they've put it into the Downfall timeline, where you can also find A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds. After all, Echoes of Wisdom clearly takes place in the same Hyrule, which has evolved over the ages.

Earlier this month, Eiji Aonuma also talked about how they've avoided the usage of the word "Triforce", in an interview with Famitsu (see NintendoEverything), confirming that the game takes place in an era where the knowledge of the actual Triforce has faded, long after A Link Between Worlds, which is similar to the Hyrule from Breath of the Wild.

However, with all of this in mind, it made sense that they might place this at the end of the Downfall timeline, but that is not the case. It currently follows Tri Force Heroes, which was a direct sequel to A Link Between Worlds (but could theoretically be placed anywhere), but still appears before the NES games.

It's a bit of a contradiction, because this means that the royal family at some point lost the knowledge about the Triforce, but then must have regained it... It's not that this is impossible, it just feels like some unnecessary back and forth. But this placement makes sense for other aspects, where the Hyrule from A Link to the Past is still present in Echoes of Wisdom and later becomes this insignificant piece of wasteland in the NES games. So, for the overall continuity this is probably the best spot, but like with the Oracle games this could change at any point.

It's also nice that it comes after A Link Between Worlds and Tri Force Heroes, because these were the last top-down games and they all share a variety of assets, like certain monster designs. But for the future it would be nice if we were to get a title in one of the other branches, because those have been ignored for over a decade.

Metroid Prime 1-3 Visual Retrospective Announced

While we're still waiting for Metroid Prime 4, we can always dwell in the nostalgia of the original trilogy. Metroid Prime Remastered was one way of doing so, another will come next year in the form on an artbook. This one gets published by Piggyback, the same company behind the guides for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom (which I have yet to get).

Here's what they have to say about it:

Developed in collaboration with Nintendo and Retro Studios, this art book showcases concept drawings, sketches and assorted illustrations from the Metroid Prime series. With an extensive range of behind-the-scenes, high quality artwork, this hardcover anthology spans more than 20 years of Metroid Prime development and includes exclusive commentary from Nintendo producer, Kensuke Tanabe, as well as the esteemed Retro Studios. Printed on premium sheet-fed art paper, this book is stitch-bound with a lavish cloth hardcover featuring an etched Samus metallic foil.

It's also said to cover Metroid Prime Remastered, where it would be a shame if we were to get another remaster now, but it didn't make the cut for the artbook. Maybe Nintendo has really no plans to release more remasters at this point, or maybe they should have waited with this book...

There is also the chance that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will be released before this book, which is coming in June 2025, but that game may potentially qualify for an artbook of its own, similar to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

In any case, I will get this, because I usually enjoy such artbooks quite a lot and I love the Metroid Prime series.

25th Anniversary of Unreal Tournament

Not every gaming series thrives as much as The Legend of Zelda, where some are long in the past, but never truly forgotten. One of these series is Unreal, which had its 25th anniversary last year, but it's really the multiplayer-focused sequel that has defined the series for what it is best remembered for: old-school Arena Shooter action.

It doesn't feel that long since its 20th Anniversary, because not much has happened in the meantime, at least nothing positive. Instead, the series reached a new low in early 2023, where Epic Games shut down all master servers and took all the Unreal games from online stores (see the End of Unreal). But the hardcore fans kept the series alive with community servers and patches, where you can even find the games for free on the Internet Archive, which has the blessing from Epic Games, at least for first two.

But that's not all... Unreal Tournament is going to be featured as an episode in a new anthology series, from the creators of Love, Death & Robots, called Secret Level. It's coming to Amazon Prime on December 10th and you can find some great clips of what to expect, like this one or that one.

This is absolutely mind-blowing to me. I've been quite busy in the last couple of weeks, because I was moving, so I only had caught glimpses of this until today. And I actually assumed that this was some very ambitious fan project for the 25th Anniversary... but it's fully official! Keep in mind that this is for a franchise where the "biggest" new thing happening to it in the last five years were weapon models in Warframe, so it's quite unbelievable to see this. It feels unreal.

The premise seems to be a prequel to Unreal Tournament, where Xan Kriegor and its gang of Liandri mining robots were condemned to fight in the tournament. I'm not 100% sold on the stylistic choices, but I'm absolutely excited to see this nevertheless.

Curiously, "Secret Level" is also the name of the studio that made the Dreamcast version of Unreal Tournament, which brings me back to another project... one of mine, actually. With the 20th anniversary I've started working on an Ultimate Console Map Pack for the game, which features all console-exclusive maps in a faithful way. The project came to a halt, however, after it was about 95% done, but it's slowly getting back on track to get in the missing parts with some support from the community... I won't make any promises, but I really want to finish this at some point. And right now seems like a very good time to get back into the game.

Happy Birthday, Unreal Tournament!