We're looking back at yet another year and there is actually quite a bit to talk about when it comes to Zelda, keeping the momentum after The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom in 2023 and 2024.
This is mainly due to Nintendo's newest system, the Nintendo Switch 2. Already in January of this year we saw the announcement, which would characterize the rest of 2025 for the Japanese video game company. A Nintendo Direct at the beginning of April then gave us a look at the lineup for the rest of the year.
The Nintendo Switch 2 itself launched on June 5th, together with Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 Editions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. These paid upgrades let the games run in 4K, 60FPS and HDR, but they also give you access to a second save slot in case you want to start over without losing your previous progress.
In addition, you can connect both games to the Zelda Notes app on your smartphone. This lets you easily find missing shrines and Koroks, discover a large number of new voice memories, hunt for trophies, and even share Autobuild creations via QR codes.
Two years after its release, four new amiibo were released for Tears of the Kingdom, one for each of the new sages: Riju, Sidon, Tulin and Yunobo. New paraglider fabrics, which you can unlock with these amiibo, were added to the game as part of the update.
Both Echoes of Wisdom and the remake of Link's Awakening also received the same boost in resolution and performance, where in this case they were part of a series of free updates. Echoes of Wisdom even got a new feature on top, where you can now create favorites in the list of echoes.
Via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack you could now play GameCube games on the Nintendo Switch, which includes The Wind Waker. It's not the port of the HD remaster that everyone was hoping for, but it's better than nothing...
And all of the above happened on the same day, on June 5th, so there were a lot of old things to enjoy in a new light all at once, given that you already had/have a Nintendo Switch 2. Only the new amiibo could still be used on a normal Nintendo Switch.
But that wasn't the end of it, where Nintendo still had another ace up their sleeve to potentially convert Zelda fans to the new system in its first year. Right in April we got the announcement for a new Hyrule Warriors game, called Age of Imprisonment, which was going to explore the Imprisoning War from the memories in Tears of the Kingdom.
For the first time in the Hyrule Warriors series this would become a canonical tale, where you get to experience Zelda's journey into the past as it happened. And this also put the beloved princess in the role of the protagonist for the second time after Echoes of Wisdom, while there were many new faces to meet, like the ancient sages under their masks, or the traveling Korok Calamo and his Construct friend, who looks and acts suspiciously like Link.
At first the game was scheduled for winter, but then came out already on November 6th. Two free updates followed to flesh out the post-game, adding a new difficulty mode, more Challenges, tougher monsters, and more. And this makes you wonder if Nintendo was pushing the game into 2025 for some reason...
In any case, the first months of the Nintendo Switch 2 were a celebration of the new era for Zelda, which has started with Breath of the Wild in 2017, with the launch of the Nintendo Switch. Whether Nintendo will further continue this era on the Nintendo Switch 2 or start something new remains to be seen.
Something completely new that awaits us is the upcoming Zelda movie. This year we got a first glimpse, announcing Bo Bragason and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Zelda and Link. However, we will have to wait until May 7th 2027 to see it.
2025 – The Arrival of Lurking Legends
While it was too early for a new Zelda game to come out in 2025, Action Adventure enjoyers still got served quite well, because 2025 saw the release of two of the most long-awaited games in the gerne with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Hollow Knight: Silksong. These titles had been announced in 2017 and 2019 respectively and were in the making ever since.
However, the former saw a bumpy development, which had to be restarted in the middle, while Silksong simply took as long, because Team Cherry had too much fun developing it. And the different results tell the tale, where the sequel to Hollow Knight delivers one of the best Metroidvania experience to date, while Prime 4 is suffering from a small identity crisis.
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