Age of Calamity: 4 Things to Know Before Playing
In case you haven’t heard, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is coming in just a few days. We here at Rice Digital are extremely excited for this one and, which other highly anticipated titles being pushed back repeatedly, we’re going to guess this is a big one for you all as well. But what is Age of Calamity? Is it a Zelda game? A Destiny Warriors game?
Well, don’t worry because we’ve got your back. Here are our top tips to help you get up to speed before heading back to Hyrule.
Four Things We Know About Age of Calamity
It’s a Whole New Playstyle
Those who played Hyrule Warriors or the multitude of Destiny Warriors games that came before it will recognise the gameplay in Age of Calamity. The name of the game here is a single champion taking on wave after wave of enemy mooks in chaotic but tactical combat. For those who didn’t play Hyrule Warriors (You really should because it is a lot of fun and brings a lot of great characters from the series for fanservice reasons), this is probably going to be a big change in a Zelda game, but once you get used to the different playstyles of the different characters you’ll be rolling through the endless horde of enemies like a pro.
Most exciting, it looks like we’ll get to use the Divine Beasts for something more than simply taking Calamity Ganon’s health down early. One of the recent trailers shows that they will feature in the gameplay, peppering the battlefield with their destructive fury in what will surely be a really fun kaiju battle.
It’s a Prequel, not a Sequel
As mentioned above, there has already been one Hyrule Warriors game, but that doesn’t mean that Age of Calamity has anything directly to do with that game. While Hyrule Warriors was very much a Destiny Warriors game with some characters and places taken from the larger Zelda series, Age of Calamity feels much more like a Zelda game that has the Destiny Warriors gameplay tacked on. That might not seem like an important distinction, but it is. While Destiny Warriors served as something of a pocket dimension away from the established (and confusing) Zelda timeline, Age of Calamity is directly tied to the events of Breath of the Wild.
We’re Gonna Get a Lore Dump
How much Age of Calamity plans to change the established world of Breath of the Wild remains to be seen, but we will definitely be getting a lot of fresh info about what led to the events in that game. Breath of the Wild took place after Hyrule’s fall while Age of Calamity takes place while the kingdom was at its height. The world will be more populated with people than we’ve seen it and information about the various locations that had been lost by the time of Link’s revival will be fresh and new.
Expect new backstory about Calamity Ganon as well as the nature of the destructive force that it embodies. I am expecting to see a lot of setting up of Breath of the Wild 2 for when it finally gets released.
Get Ready to Ugly Cry
Look, we all know how this ends. We know what is coming at the end of Age of Calamity. The Guardians are definitely dead at the start of Breath of the Wild, so this doesn’t have a happy ending for them. However, that doesn’t mean their deaths won’t be impactful or heartbreaking. Considering the amount of personality all of them had during our brief glimpses of them in the first game, I expect to grow even more attached to them through the course of this game, meaning I am going to have a box of tissues handy for when they invariably break my heart.
Despite the likely emotional rollercoaster that is coming, this is the most exciting game of the next few months for me. I adore the Zelda series and Breath of the Wild in general, so I cannot wait to dive back into that world.
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