Age of Imprisonment Launching November 6th

A new trailer for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment got dropped during yesterday's Nintendo Direct and provided us with lots of new footage, as well as a release date: it's November 6th already. That was quite surprising, since it was originally scheduled for "this winter", so not even necessarily 2025. And November is still fall in my book.

Anyway, the trailer offers some very interesting insights details, so let's talk about those. Easily the biggest reveal was the introduction of a new Korok character, the most stylish one in history. He wears a scarf (with the same design as Rauru's) and a second leaf like a pompadour. We can see him throwing different elemental fruits, lots of them at once, and then strike with a Forest Dweller's Sword.

This guy looks like he's going to be a highlight. Hestu was great in Age of Calamity, but he was a bit clunky and this new Korok will be certainly more on the swift side of the roster. Also, it's crazy to think about how they have designed a completely new Korok as a playable character for this game, while the first Hyrule Warriors couldn't even offer us a playable Makar.

They've always liked to create some original characters with these games, like Lana, Cia, Linkle, Terrako or Sooga, but this time the majority of the roster might be made out of new faces. There will be the four masked sages, the Korok, and also the Construct Hero that we saw already at the end of the previous trailer.

Turns out that this one can even fly for some aerial combat sequences, which reminds me of how DOOM: The Dark Ages did something similar this year. And he can swap from this flying mode back into his human form, where you can see him sky diving into the Depths, though this could have been a cutscene. But I want this character as a DLC for Tears of the Kingdom! Make it some endgame bonus, like the Ancient Hero's Aspect, but let the player go crazy.

They have also confirmed the "Sync Strike" mechanic, which is similar to how the Fire Emblem Warriors games do it. They even showed Sonia as an example, where she stands on the battlefield with a longbow, but for some reason they shy away from showing her as an actual playable character. Yet, at the same time, during the training mission with Rauru, it looks like you can swap to some generic Hyrulean soldier:

It's the fourth character in the selection on the left of the screen. It has been a common wish for the Hyrule Warriors games that you can also play as the captain units, but I personally didn't need this. But maybe these will be something like temporary units, who might join you for a battle or two, but are not part of your main character selection. This way we could even have Sonia as a playable character, without her creating a gap in the roster later on, given that this games truly follows the canon events.

We can even see one of these commanding units in action with a Gerudo Warrior, who fights alongside the Sage of Lightning. But in this case it really could be just for the Sync Strikes and nothing else, where you might be able to perform them with any stronger ally unit nearby, not just the ones you take control of. It could also be that this is an important character, similar to Captain Buliara, who happens to be playable as well, but she looks strikingly unremarkable.

What's even more interesting are the new foes shown in the trailer, who look to be mini-bosses for the different sages:

There is this witch character, who looks like a Gerudo, but with tentacle arms. The Zelda Musou X account features a different reel, where you can see how she is summoning lots of mud and surrounding herself in it. She is opposed by the Sage of Water in both scenes.

Meanwhile, the Sage of Fire is taking on some weird hybrid of Lynel and Hinox and fire monster, which is sitting on a Gloom Rock. It looks awfully familiar and completely new at the same time, quite the creation. I usually love the designs they are doing for the Hyrule Warriors games and I'm happy that they are getting much more creative with the enemy design here.

In Age of Calamity we mostly got the Malice variants of  all stronger foes, but this trick won't work again here, since Tears of the Kingdom already drenched everything in Gloom. There were also new elemental variants, like the Fire Lynel, and the Bomb Barrel Moblins, of course. But getting completely new monsters in a Hyrule Warriors is something else, where the closest is probably Harbinger Ganon. But that could have been a playable character as well, similar to Astor, which doesn't really look like an option for this Gloom Rock beast.

But maybe it is? So far there is no indication, but I'd love a villain campaign for this game, where you play as Ganondorf and his henchmen. How awesome would it be if he had something like a group of "Anti Sages"? 

Zonai Devices are also explained, where it's crazy how you can combine their effects. In the trailer you can see how Zelda uses a Shock Emitter on a fan, which creates this huge lightning tornado. Looks like these devices were intended to be a lot more potent than what they are in Tears of the Kingdom. However, it doesn't really look like something that's much fun to engage with. You take these devices out of an inventory and then carry them around, which prevents you from using your normal attacks. I'm usually the type of player who tends to ignore such options unless they become necessary.

You can also play in split-screen and use Game Share to play with someone, who only has a Nintendo Switch, which is very interesting. You can see how the resolution got cropped significantly for this, where it's probably similar to playing in splitscreen from a technical standpoint, but it also needs to be streamed to the other Switch at the same time. From my experience with both Hyrule Warriors and Age of Calamity, this is not something that I would recommend.