Since launching Animal Crossing: New Horizons earlier this year, Nintendo has remained mostly silent in regards to announcing new games, with most Nintendo Direct events this year being dropped without any prior announcement or lead-up. Now, like Paper Mario: The Origami King earlier this year, Nintendo has announced yet another major title for the remainder of 2020 out of nowhere with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, a prequel to 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The announcement video released via Nintendo's YouTube channel earlier today opens with The Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma stating that while the team does not have any new information to share regarding Breath of the Wild's upcoming sequel, Nintendo and Koei Tecmo have been working on this brand new entry in the Hyrule Warriors spin-off series as a prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity promises to flesh out the events leading up to the beginning of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, telling a story set 100 years before the events of the 2017 Nintendo Switch launch title.
Hyrule Warriors, which was released in 2014 for Wii U, with subsequent ports to Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch in the form of Hyrule Warriors Legends and Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition, respectively, is a hack and slash spin-off of both Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda and Koei Tecmo's Dynasty Warriors series. While the original title took place in a universe separate from any of the main series Zelda titles, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is not only a canon prequel to Breath of the Wild, but features multiple of the game's characters as playable characters, including Princess Zelda herself.
The trailer showcases multiple characters from Breath of the Wild as fully playable warriors, including the game's Champions of Hyrule, such as Urbosa and Revali, as well as showcasing how the game's Divine Beasts may be used in combat. As a prequel to Breath of the Wild, the trailer also implies that the game may be heavily story driven, with a major emphasis mostly towards the game's cut-scenes showcasing the warriors of Hyrule battling Calamity Ganon. Koei Tecmo has announced that more information will be released on the title on September 26th 2020 during the publisher's Tokyo Game Show live stream.
This isn't the first time Nintendo and Koei Tecmo have teamed up for a Warriors spin-off title such as this, their previous collaborations include the original Hyrule Warriors, as well as Fire Emblem Warriors on Nintendo Switch and New Nintendo 3DS. Koei Tecmo has previously collaborated with multiple other game developers and publishers for games based on the Dynasty Warriors series such as the Dragon Quest Heroes series and most recently Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers, which still has yet to be released outside of Japan.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity will release on November 20th 2020, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.