Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment – PAX AUS 2025 Hands On Preview
There are two pertinent things about me as a player that have been fairly well documented in the lore of Player2. Firstly, I’m not a fan at all of the direction that Nintendo went with Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom. As I write this I can feel the Nintendo Police getting into their cars to drive here now, so I’ll wrap that by saying that while I don’t like them, I can certainly appreciate the path that they pursued, and know them to be good – they’re just not a Paul game. On the flip side, I adore a musou game. From Dynasty Warriors on PS2 as a kid, to dabbling with a range of other IP collaborations like Dragon Quest, I’ve long loved any chance to somewhat mindlessly massacre hundreds of warring baddies in front of me, and that love extends to the Hyrule Warriors games as well. Having spent a good 30 minutes with the newest entry, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment courtesy of the recent PAX AUS demo opportunity, I feel supremely confident that my love of musous are going to overpower some of my distaste for modern Zelda, to give us all a sensational Hyrule Warriors experience.
This demo dropped me into a cave with default control over Princess Zelda, who is also accompanied by King Rauru and Queen Sonia. An opening cutscene plays, which, I’ll be honest, I skipped, so that I could get on the sticks and start playing. As someone who lacks context for the story of these games, I felt no semblance of guilt, and the experience didn’t suffer for not knowing what was going on either. That said, Age Of Imprisonment slots in as a prequel to the beloved events of The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, so for those unacquainted with what has come with the latest mainline entry, you’ll be protected from spoilers in this spin-off.
Of course, in this demo environment, it’s the gameplay that takes center stage. I’m already a massive fan of Musou’s, but blending that formula with the Zelda IP works wonders once again, and I’m eager to experience more of it. From the standard hacking and slashing through dozens, and up to hundreds of surrounding enemies, to quickly switching between Zelda, Rauru and Sonia, utlising their different combative strengths, and even linking up with them to execute incredible combo attacks. As well as being an incredibly potent paired technique, I also adored the visual spectacle of these attacks – much like the awesome finishers that the player could use to take down an enemy leader or boss.
There was a lot to love about this one, lead amongst the reasons that the game seemed to be running incredibly smoothly. We’re now sadly quite used to Musou’s running poorly on Nintendo platforms due to hardware limitations, but the Switch 2 appears to be handling the game quite comfortably. As a playing experience, this also feels like the very best of the Hyrule Warriors games to play, and I’m beyond excited to check out more of it in just a matter of weeks.
Time Until Launch (November 6, 2025)
