Princess Zelda herself will star in the next Legend of Zelda game. Nintendo announced The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom during the latest Nintendo Direct showcase, confirming that the Zelda-led adventure will be coming to Switch later this year.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom looks a lot like the 2019 remake The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, from a graphics perspective, but it will play very differently. Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma said Echoes of Wisdom will feature “a new gameplay style that breaks convention;” in other words, Zelda won’t fight alone as Link. Instead, she uses a new magic rod and the power of wisdom to create and duplicate objects to help her overcome obstacles and enemies.
Releases on Switch on September 26 The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the first game developed by Nintendo in which Zelda explicitly plays the leading role. Normally hero duties are reserved for Link, and longtime Nintendo fans have hoped for decades that Zelda would get a heroic turn in the series that bears her name.
Princess Zelda has been playable in a handful of games from Nintendo and other developers over the past forty years. She is a playable character in spin-offs such as the Hyrule Warriors action games, the Super Smash Bros. series, and in rhythm games Cadence of Hyrule. In 2009 The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracksplayers take control of a version of Zelda, in spiritual form, during portions of the game.
Two games with Zelda protagonists that Nintendo would probably rather forget are from 1993 Zelda: Gamelon’s Wand and 1996 Zelda’s Adventurea pair of interactive adventures developed for the Philips CD-i multimedia player.