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Nintendo and Koei Tecmo launched Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment today. It's a Musou spin-off of The Legend of Zelda series, meaning it takes the franchise's iconic characters and places them in massive battles where they can be action heroes and wipe out hordes of enemy soldiers. The Fire Emblem franchise has also gotten this treatment a few times. As a fan of the Musou subgenre of action games, Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors have been some of my favorite Nintendo spin-offs from the past decade. I even think that there's potential for Warriors spin-offs for even more Nintendo franchises. Now that Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is out, I hope Nintendo and Koei Tecmo consider making a Musou game based on one of these franchises. Xenoblade Chronicles The franchise that would most plausibly get this treatment next Of all Nintendo's franchises, this one feels most likely to eventually get the Musou treatment. Monolith Soft made this RPG franchise one of Nintendo's flagship series during the Nintendo Switch generation, but it has yet to make an appearance on Nintendo Switch 2. While I'd love for it to do so with a full, new RPG, a spin-off like this would work as well. Across all three Xenoblade Chronicles games, there is a wealth of characters that can be pulled from for playable characters, enemies, and bosses. That number will go up even further if they're able to get the likes of Xenogears and Xenosaga in play. Even if they don't, the three core Xenoblade Chronicles games give Koei Tecmo more than enough to build on. With all the timeline shenanigans the Xenoblade Chronicles 3's Future Redeemed DLC added to the franchise, there's a way to make the adventure work canonically, too. While the other franchises on this list would require some intense rethinking and recontextualizing to make it work, a Xenoblade Warriors game would feel so seamless that I wouldn't be shocked if Nintendo announced it at the next Direct. Super Mario Bros. Hear me out! This could work. Now, this one probably sounds like quite a stretch, but Mario shooting a gun in Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle was too. With the right approach, I think there's potential here. Ultimately, I'm just interested in seeing what a really cartoonish game that pushes the boundaries of what a Musou game could be would look like. Imagine being able to use an Ice or Fire Flower on a horde of Goombas or swiping at Koopas as cat Peach or Luigi. Instead of capturing bases, you could be raising flags like you did at the end of New Super Mario Bros. stages. It would require breaking the Musou game formula down to its studs and recontextualizing it in several different ways, but it could work. Some of the coolest Musou games are the ones that don't seem like they'd work at first, like Persona 5 Strikers or Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below. Koei Tecmo found a way to make those franchises work in this genre, so why couldn't it be done with an action-platformer series like Super Mario? If they did manage to pull something like this off, it'd be a Mario spin-off for the ages. Golden Sun This Nintendo series needs to come back in some form If Nintendo isn't going to let Camelot make a new Golden Sun anytime soon so they can keep pumping out Mario sports games, then the least they could do is give the franchise some love with a Golden Sun Warriors spin-off. In fact, a game like this reintroducing all the series' main characters could even serve as an insightful crash course ahead of a new RPG. If you've forgotten about Golden Sun, I don't blame you. It's a series of cult classic Nintendo-published RPGs for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS that has been dormant since 2010's Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Still, its fantasy universe of swords, Psynergy, and djinn would provide an ample backdrop for a Musou game. I mentioned that Musou's based on other turn-based RPGs have worked well before, so why could the same apply to Golden Sun? Ultimately, I do just want this series to come back in some way, shape, or form. If that were a "Golden Sun Warriors"- style game, I wouldn't mind it. A new RPG made for Switch 2 would work too, Nintendo. Pokémon Pokémon Pokopia opens the door for some weirder spin-offs Finally, another outside-the-box idea would be a Pokémon Musou. Pokémon Legends: Z-A took a step in making battles take place in real-time, while the Pokémon Rumble series has demonstrated that the franchise can work for straight-up action games. Pokémon Pokopia shows that The Pokémon Company can radically shake up gameplay for a spin-off. Why not give a Musou game a shot then? One of the most important decisions in a game like this is whether players control a Pokémon or a trainer. Fortresses could be home to Pokémon battles between trainers, or this story could solely be about Pokémon who live and talk to each other, Mystery Dungeon style. I've maybe spent a little too long thinking about how this could work. Much like my Super Mario Bros. pitch, this would be a tougher concept to make work. The payoff to such a game being good would be immense, though. Hopefully, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment isn't the only Nintendo Musou for Switch 2 It's great to see Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment hit Switch 2 within its first year on the market, just like Fire Emblem Warriors did for the original Nintendo Switch. I hope it's the start of a long run of entertaining Musou games on the system. I wouldn't mind if Nintendo and Koei Tecmo revisited Fire Emblem or The Legend of Zelda again for their next Musou game, but I also think it's time for something new. Of all the ideas I listed, a Warriors spin-off of Xenoblade Chronicles feels the most likely. That Golden Sun concept is the one I'd like to see most, though, if just to see that franchise return. Regardless, I'm confident that these franchises would be in good hands with Koei Tecmo and Nintendo were they to create a Warriors spin-off of another one of their franchises.
