After decades of serving as the named inspiration for the beloved franchise The Legend of Zelda, the series’ titular princess is finally getting her own game. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, releasing September 26 for Nintendo Switch, gives Zelda her very own hero’s journey after Link goes missing. But it does not, sadly give her her own sword.
Players have been clamoring for Hyrule’s favorite princess to take the lead in a Zelda game for years now, or at least to be playable in games like Tears of the Kingdom. Excitement around Zelda’s triumph was immediately evident on X after Nintendo announced the game Tuesday during one of its Direct presentations. (Sample post: “I make no excuses for the person I will become once I get to play as PRINCESS ZELDA.”)
In Echoes of Wisdom, she’s tasked with rescuing Hyrule’s residents, Link included, who are being swallowed up by mysterious rifts. To save them, Zelda teams up with a fairy named Tri; armed with the Tri Rod, Zelda can create imitations of environmental objects and enemies called echoes to solve puzzles and fight monsters.
In the game’s trailer, for example, Zelda learns how to replicate a table. She can then spawn echoes of that table anywhere she wants, which allows the player to create stairs and bridges made of tables. Similar to Tears of the Kingdom’s Ultrahand a Fuse abilities, the possibilities for echoes seem pretty open; the trailer shows her learning how to make boxes, beds, rocks, and waterblocks to get around and circumvent would-be obstacles. Echoes of monsters become allies who fight alongside her.
Echoes of Wisdom has a visual style similar to the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening from 2019, but seems more in line with the experimental nature of the series’ most recent release, Tears of the Kingdom. During the presentation, longtime producer Eiji Aonuma said that the team “wanted to create a new gameplay style that breaks conventions seen in the past” with other top-down games. As for how many echoes there are, Aonuma says he hasn’t counted them all yet.
Nintendo is also releasing a gold, “Hyrule Edition” Nintendo Switch Lite along with the game.
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