Highlights

  • Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom introduces Zelda as playable character, offering a fresh take on classic gameplay and story elements.
  • The game blends old-school Zelda charm with modern mechanics, featuring a Tri Rod system that revolutionizes combat and puzzle-solving.
  • Echoes of Wisdom embraces player creativity, offering a sandbox world reminiscent of classic Zelda games while pushing boundaries for the franchise.

Among the many exciting reveals and announcements featured in the recent Nintendo Direct was The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, a brand-new, top-down Zelda game that looks to be taking an interesting approach to both gameplay and story. Notably, Echoes of Wisdom will star Zelda as a playable character—something that fans of the series have been asking for for decades at this point.

Zelda's role as a proper protagonist isn't the only reason players are excited for Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, though. Though it takes some clear cues from the art design of the 2019 Link's Awakening remake, Echoes of Wisdom is far from a retread of old ideas. Instead, it aims to experiment with the Zelda formula, ostensibly taking a more freeform, emergent approach to puzzle-solving, combat, and open-world discovery. The game seems very supportive of player creativity, while still retaining the sense of exploration, whimsy, and charm that characterizes most top-down Zelda games.

Zelda 's ability to reinvent itself is perhaps its greatest achievement as a franchise, and a major part of why it has remained relevant for so long. Echoes of Wisdom seems to be continuing this tradition.

Zelda Echoes of Wisdom key art with Zelda holding Tri Rod-1
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How The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Adjusts Franchise Combat

Zelda will have the Tri Rod instead of a sword in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which drastically changes the franchise's familiar combat.

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Could Be the Best of Modern and Classic Zelda

What Echoes of Wisdom Takes from Old-School Zelda

Given Echoes of Wisdom's strikingly familiar art style, one could be forgiven for thinking that it's another remake in the vein of Link's Awakening. Beyond its neo-retro presentation, there's also good reason to believe that Echoes of Wisdom's Hyrule is the same as the one in A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds, the classic Zelda duology for the SNES and 3DS, respectively.

Considering that Nintendo waited more than two decades to release a sequel to A Link to the Past, it's possible that Echoes of Wisdom is yet another entry in this Zelda timeline, picking up where 2013's A Link Between Worlds left off. Even if this map similarity is only skin-deep, it's indicative of the old-school spirit that Echoes of Wisdom is imbued with, as the game's sandbox world seems to have a lot more in common with classic top-down Zelda games than the sweeping enormity of something like Breath of the Wild.

Echoes of Wisdom Is Incorporating Modern Zelda Elements Too

For as much as it seems to have in common with classic Zelda on the presentation and structural fronts, Echoes of Wisdom is shaping up to be on the cutting-edge mechanically. Its most exciting new mechanic is the Tri Rod system, which feels like an evolution of Tears of the Kingdom's Ultrahand ability in some ways. With the Tri Rod, Zelda can copy various in-game objects and replicate them wherever she pleases, opening the door to an incredible degree of puzzle-solving freedom. The Tri Rod can even copy enemy NPCs, completely reframing Zelda combat, folding enemy encounters into a broader puzzle-solving framework and rewarding players for cleverness more than reaction time or button skill.

Needless to say, this is a radical departure from the traditional Zelda formula. Philosophically, it may be likened to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, both of which take a similarly open-ended approach to puzzle design; very few, if any, of the puzzles in those games have a single correct solution. These types of puzzles may very well be a staple of modern Zelda, as they stand in stark contrast to the single-solution, binary puzzles of the series' past. So, in this way, Echoes of Wisdom is in line with modern Zelda games, while still hearkening back to an older era of the franchise. Most importantly, Echoes of Wisdom is making huge strides of its own, which will hopefully allow it to have one foot in the present and one in the past, but with its eye trained on the future.