Nintendo released a new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Widom this morning—its first Zelda game in generations to feature the titular Princess as the primary playable protagonist. It confirms two pretty wonderful things: first, that the publisher is trying to marry the franchise’s oldest sensibilities with its newest influences. Secondly? Zelda’s a horse girlie.
The new five-minute gameplay overview gives us a brief look at what to expect when Zelda finds herself off on an adventure to save Hyrule, after Link is consumed by a mysterious dark void emerging over the Kingdom in his own attempts to rescue the Princess from nefarious clutches.
Despite Echoes‘ traditional aesthetic trappings, borrowing its perspective from the earliest games in the Zelda franchise and its chibi-leanings from 2019 remake of Link’s Awakening, there’s a lot here that feels much more reminiscent of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom‘s mechanical ideas than traditional Zelda games. There’s crafting elements like the smoothie shops (seemingly replacing Link’s cooking as a way to get various buffs), various outfits for fashion and functionality, and Zelda’s ability to summon a horse to get around (or even find and unlock fast travel points). But the biggest is another new ability Zelda will have to solve puzzles and engage with the world around her.
Gifted to her by her new ally, the fairy Tri, Bind is akin to the magnesis and ultrahand abilities from Breath and Tears. In one form, Zelda can manipulate objects regardless of size to move with her, and in its reverse-bond form, she can connect herself to an object and move along with it. Combined with the new echo power Zelda has, these abilities let players approach combat, puzzle-solving, and traversal in ways that feel much more like Breath and Tears‘ experimental leanings, rather than Zelda‘s traditional style of finding very specific ways to solve specific things.
Cliff too high to scale? Summon an echo of a spider and reverse-bond it to yourself to follow it as it climbs up. Need a quick defense in combat? Echo up a sea urchin, bind it to yourself, and simply dash into enemies. The variety of applications in this format of Zelda games is unlike anything we’ve really seen in the post-Breath of the Wild world, and it’ll be very interesting to see just how much Echoes manages to bring that kind of open-ended gameplay to something playing more directly with classic Zelda‘s gameplay legacy.
We’ll find out more when Echoes of Wisdom hits Nintendo Switch next month, on September 26.
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