Daily Debate: Could Rauru’s Imprisoning War Be The Setting Of The Next Hyrule Warriors Game?
Posted on July 18 2023 by Sean Gadus
Spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom‘s Main Story
Since debuting in 2014, the spin-off series Hyrule Warriors has been one of the more interesting experiments from Nintendo. Over the past two decades, Nintendo has been very careful with its implementation of the Zelda IP, so it was a bit surprising when Nintendo allowed Koei Tecmo to develop a game using Zelda characters. Hyrule Warriors, which was developed by Omega Force and Team Ninja, combined the characters and setting of the Zelda series with hack and slash combat seen in series like Dynasty Warriors. Hyrule Warriors was a success on the lack-luster Wii-U, and it was eventually ported to both Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the second Hyrule Warriors game (not counting the ports), was a major success on the Nintendo Switch, and its lifetime sales currently sit at around 4 million copies.
Despite the success of the series, Hyrule Warriors has been dormant since the second part of Age of Calamity‘s DLC was released in October 2021. While Nintendo has claimed that they would only revisit the spin-off series if the right opportunity came up, there is an interesting potential setting for a future Hyrule Warriors game: the ancient past seen in Tears of the Kingdom. Age of Calamity focused on a version of the past seen in Breath of the Wild, and a new Hyrule Warriors game could be set in the distant past depicted in Tears of the Kingdom.
With this in mind, could Rauru and Zelda’s war against the Demon King be the setting of the next Hyrule Warriors game?
Overall, I think that setting a Hyrule Warriors game during the past shown briefly in Tears of the Kingdom would make a lot of sense creatively and financially. First, a new Hyrule Warriors game would help bridge the gap between Tears of the Kingdom and whatever the next major Zelda project is. Making a new Hyrule Warriors game would ensure that fans have Zelda-themed content while they wait patiently for the next big Zelda game. Second, Rauru’s time period is only shown in a few memories, similar to how the period one hundred years before Breath of the Wild was largely unexplored outside of memories. This hypothetical new Hyrule Warriors game could explore the conflict between Hyrule and Ganondorf that culminates with Ganondorf’s imprisonment deep below Hyrule. A third Hyrule Warriors game could give players a chance to spent more time with characters like Rauru, Mineru, and the other sages, who did not have a lot of screen time in Tears of the Kingdom.
What do you think? Could the distant past seen in Tears of the Kingdom be the setting of the next Hyrule Warriors game? If not, what do you want from a future Hyrule Warriors game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below?
Sean Gadus is a Senior Editor at Zelda Dungeon. His first Zelda game was Ocarina of Time, and he loves all of the 3D Zelda games from 1998-2011. The final battle of Tears of the Kingdom is one of his favorite final battles in the entire series. He wants to help build a kinder, more compassionate world. You can check out his other written work at The-Artifice.com.
