Who needs another Nintendo Direct when the company is willing to randomly dish on its next Zelda game with an unexpected five-minute trailer. The latest info dump for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom gives a tour of the Hyrule players will get to explore in the series’ latest top-down sequel for Switch, and it looks packed full of cool details to find and secrets to uncover.
The new Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom trailer shows the titular princess meeting Zora, Goron, and even Gerudo, and unlike Link, she doesn’t even have to sneak into the women-only village this time around. Zelda will also be able to ride a horse that can jump over ledges, and fast travel between waypoints she discovers on her journey. This version of Hyrule might be in a retro-chibi art style but it’s anything but a throwback to the older games’ overworld maps.
Here’s a look:
The new footage takes players through Hyrule Castle and the surrounding city, the desert and its Gerudo village, the aquatic homes of the river Zora and sea Zora respectively, and the fiery mountains where the Goron eat rocks all day long. Zelda will also encounter tons of side-quests during her journey, where she’ll be called on to use her wand duplication magic (called echoes) to clone objects and help residents and fellow wanderers in need.
In addition to her trusty steed, which can trample enemies and be summoned by creating carrot echoes, there are also smoothie shops where Zelda can mix-and-match the ingredients she’s collected on her travels to get various status buffs, just like Link has been doing in the cooking minigames for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Zelda can change outfits too, in order to augment not just her look but also her abilities.
The final mechanic outlined in the trailer is Zelda’s bind ability. In addition to summoning echoes of objects found in the world, she’ll also be able to bind objects to her that will follow her around when she moves. Reverse-bind, meanwhile, will make her follow the objects, help her hang from moving platforms or catch rides on fast creatures in the world around her.
Out September 26, Echoes of Wisdom really does seem like it’s shaping up to take the lessons learned from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom when it comes to open world experimentation and freeform puzzle solving. A lot of fans have been hoping Zelda’s first playable entry in the series wouldn’t be just an off-year B-side, and so far that thankfully doesn’t seem to be the case at all.
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