By Tj Denzer

Copyright shacknews

I maintain that, despite its flaws, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was an amazing Koei Tecmo Musou game held back by limited hardware. Yes, many of the Warriors games are same-y to a degree, but when it comes to the third-party collaborations, the devs of KT seem to play around with their own rules and evolve their style a lot more. At Tokyo Game Show 2025, Koei Tecmo took the opportunity to show off the upcoming Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, and with the new hardware of the Switch 2 at their disposal, it looks and feels like the studio can finally show what they’re fully capable of without the reins of outdated technology holding it back.

A desperate tale, fully unraveled

Much like Age of Calamity, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment explores a topic otherwise only experienced in brief cutscenes that were hidden throughout Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Those of us who finished that quest know the broad strokes of how things went down. Zelda and Link’s encounter with a sealed Ganondorf in their present time flung Zelda far back in time to the beginnings of the Hyrule Kingdom under the reign of the first King, Rauru, and his supporters. Zelda found herself going to battle alongside ancient heroes as they were about to face down the accursed Ganondorf, who had become nearly unstoppable. Age of Imprisonment picks up at the start of Rauru and Ganondorf’s ancient struggle as Rauru and his allies aim to solve the mystery of Zelda’s fated appearance in their time and stop the destruction of their world at the Demon King’s hands.

The demo at Tokyo Game Show 2025 picked up as Zelda, Rauru, and his sister, Mineru, were looking for clues that could help them fight back the evil spreading across Hyrule. That endeavor took them down into the Depths underneath the land where we got to partake in exploration and combat, as well as trying out a few new mechanics. During this demo, we were given glimpses of Zelda, Mineru, and Rauru’s capabilities, starting with Zelda.

When Zelda was transported to the past, she took a broken Master Sword with her (broken at Ganondorf’s hands when he easily defeated her and Link upon discovering him at the start of Tears). The sword may be at a fraction of its power, but in Age of Imprisonment, Zelda channels her Power of Light through it to make use of it as a wand. That allows her to throw all sorts of light magic through the sword, sweeping the battlefield of enemies with grand spells including light balls, discs, and explosions. We also learned about limited Zonai items (the items we collected and connected in Tears of the Kingdom) that could be equipped and used to gain various advantages on the field, as long as you mind a very limited Zonai Battery meter. At one point in the demo, Zelda used a Zonai Flame Emitter to blast fire across the field like a flamethrower. Fun times!

Next up was Mineru, who was the foremost expert on Zonai devices in her time period. That comes through strong in her combat. Mineru’s combos include barraging her foes with various Zonai devices and connected Zonai machines as she makes use of the knowledge gained from her studies in combat. With her fast travel, she even calls a cart with spiked wheels that can run over foes as she moves, which feels so hilariously disrespectful to her unfortunate enemies.

Finally, Rauru, wielder of the Ultra Hand and the first King of Hyrule, takes a spear of light into battle and uses long-reaching sweeping attacks to overwhelm his foes like a tidal wave. One of the coolest things about him is that many of his attacks involve throwing the spear forward at his foes and then using the power of Ultra Hand to control the spear at range like a whip as he lashes enemies with it. It’s cool enough to be in Rauru’s shoes for once, but the way Koei Tecmo has him use his mastery of Ultra Hand is incredible.

One of the last things we got to see was a new feature called the Sync Strike. As in most Warriors/Musou games, characters have a meter that builds up to allow them to do an incredibly strong attack. However, if two compatible characters are in your party (up to four characters) and both have their meters maxed, then you can use a Sync Strike unique to them. In the case of Zelda and Rauru, this resulted in Rauru combining his Power of Light with Zelda’s, allowing them both to fire off beams of light you control separately with the left and right thumbstick. You can obliterate enemies in several directions at once with the two beams, and then they combine their power and finish with a magnificent exploding beam of energy that would make Goku of Dragon Ball fame blush.

Of course, it’s worth noting that all of this was running smoothly and visually beautiful. Age of Calamity was great, but the limitations of the Switch kept it from being as good of a Warriors game as it could have been. The visuals looked polished here, the performance ran flawlessly at a stable and high framerate, and the music sounded like another soundtrack I want on Nintendo Music right away (put the original Hyrule Warriors and Age of Calamity soundtracks in there while you’re at it, Nintendo). Everything looked and sounded as crisp and clean as I have ever wanted out of these games.

A grand battle for the future of Hyrule

Those who have finished The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom probably know that things are likely to get dire in this storyline, but it’s easy to forget that when you look at the sheer presentation on display here. The feel of characters and accentuation of their specialties in Zelda lore were a delight to explore, and it makes me giddy to play the rest of the cast. Meanwhile, new features like Zonai devices and Sync Strikes are adding to what was an already exciting formula to make this game stand out all on its own. If the performance holds up when it comes to the full release, this will be one of the best Musou/Warriors games we’ve gotten, and a great companion piece to Tears of the Kingdom to boot.

This preview is based on a Nintendo Switch 2 demo presented by the developers. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment comes to Nintendo Switch 2 on November 6, 2025.