Despite being the second game of its kind, Nintendo isn’t expecting Hyrule Warriors to become its own spin-off series after Age of Calamity – but we could see another installment if the right idea comes along.IGN got the chance to speak to Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity producer Yosuke Hayashi, and I asked whether – after two Hyrule Warriors installments – they were considering making this its own standalone series, alongside mainline Zelda games.
“I do think circumstances could align like this again,” explained Eiji Aonuma, “but I don’t think we’re expecting this to become a series. We’d make that decision based on its creative merits, just like we did this time.”
“I think it depends on whether we get an idea that’ll make all the fans happy!”, added Hayashi.
I asked if, on a wider level, Nintendo was now looking to put together more spin-offs between its mainline Zelda games. Again, Aonuma explained that it was taking an ‘idea-first’ approach: “Echoing my answer to the question above, we’re always looking for valuable creative projects, but those only come about when several different conditions align. So, I think it’s hard for us to have conscious control over the frequency.”So if this game came about through a good idea popping up, who had that original idea? “It was Fujibayashi-san, the director of [Breath of the Wild], who initially came up with the concept,” Aonuma tells me. “Fujibayashi-san thought that telling the untold story of the Great Calamity from BotW would only be possible with a system like Warriors where players could come together to fight against vast armies, so he put together a project proposal and sent it to me. His enthusiasm for the project pushed me to consult with Hayashi-san.”
“We had been having internal discussions about the what would be next for Hyrule Warriors,” Hayashi continues, “but we weren’t able land on any good ideas. ‘Using Warriors to tell the story of the Great Calamity’ was a great concept, so it didn’t take us long to start pulling the project together.”
That fusion of Dynasty Warriors and Breath of the Wild ended up being a potent one – we awarded the game a 9/10 review, saying its “hugely varied roster of characters, solid combat mechanics, fun progression and clever adaptation of Breath of the Wild’s vision of Hyrule is a joy to play and discover”.
As good as it is, hopefully Age of Calamity won’t have to tide us over for too long until The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2. Sadly, we still have to wait a bit longer for updates on that one.
Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.News Source
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