A Beginner's Guide to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

A story set 100 years before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild…

Play as Link and Zelda, along with Impa and the four Champions of Hyrule, as they try to stop the kingdom from being brought to ruin by Calamity Ganon. Together, battle against the encroaching darkness and try to change the kingdom’s destiny!

Experience a unique story featuring familiar faces from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and see Hyrule from a different perspective – before the Great Calamity struck.

Satisfying Hack and Slash Action!

If you’ve played a game from ‘The Legend of Zelda’ series, you might look at Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and figure its gameplay will be just like them, guess again!

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was co-developed by Koei Tecmo, a developer known for their hack and slash open area action games: Dynasty Warriors.

The gameplay essentially is 1 vs 1000 on a large battlefield. Playing as one character at a time, your attacks and abilities can take out tens, sometimes even hundreds of enemies at a time. You can slash your way through huge swaths of Bokoblins on your way to the boss, almost like you’re mowing the lawn.

(Speaking of cutting grass, you can also find materials by cutting the actual grass in Hyrule Warriors: age of Calamity, this is still a Zelda game after all!)

A well-suited style of gameplay to follow Link, Zelda and the Champions on their desperate struggle to save Hyrule from the monstrous hordes of Calamity Ganon.

You choose from a roster of characters (that’s right, not just Link!) from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to take into battle, each with their own unique attacks and playstyle.

It starts with easy controls at first, but after a bit of practice and a few upgrades you can string together epic combo attacks that will destroy an enemy army in seconds.

Combat

Combat is fluid and fun, with many ways to tackle regular enemies and powerful foes alike.

General attacks are split into two types: ‘regular attacks’ and ‘strong attacks.’

Press Y repeatedly to keep attacking with regular attacks, these string together one after another and are called ‘Combos’. When you start, each character has around 4 regular attacks before it starts again, but as you progress, level up and upgrade characters you will unlock longer attack combos.

Press X to do a strong attack. Strong attacks don’t follow on when you mash X like regular attacks though, the key to strong attacks is using them RIGHT AFTER a regular attack to finish a combo with a strong hit that often will KO a large group at once.

You can use a strong attack at any point during your regular attack combo, what’s important about this is that depending on WHEN you use the strong attack determines WHAT strong attack is used.

For example, each of these button combos will produce different attacks:

Y,X

Y,Y,X

Y,Y,Y,X

Y,Y,Y,Y,X

Each character has completely different attacks and abilities, so be sure to try everyone out! You never know when you’ll find your favourite attack combos.

Special Attacks

As you fight, you fill up a yellow bar below your health bar, which is your special-attack gauge. Once that is full, it will begin to flash and display (A). position yourself around as many enemies as you can, then simply press A to unleash your character’s unique and powerful special attack!

Fighting Powerful Foes

Named enemies are strong like you, so you’ll need to be careful when fighting these powerful foes. Lock on to strong enemies by pressing the Right Stick, which will focus the camera and your movement on them. After some attacks, a ‘Weak-Point Gauge’ icon like a hexagon with 6 sections will appear. Landing hits while this is displayed will reduce the gauge sections until fully depleted. Once their Weak-Point Gauge is depleted get in close and press (X) to perform a super-powerful attack!

Sheikah Runes:

In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to use Sheikah Runes such as Remote Bombs, Cryonis, Magnesis and Stasis; Link needed to have the Sheikah Slate, an ancient Sheikah tablet device. In Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, our little Guardian friend grants EVERY character the ability to use those Runes, all in their own unique way.

Powerful foes in particular (like Moblins, Lynels, etc.) will be susceptible to Sheikah Runes while preparing powerful attacks. A symbol will display on these enemies indicating the right Rune to use, and if your timing and positioning is good, you’ll disrupt their attack and leave them vulnerable for your favourite attacks.

You can also use these Sheikah abilities to solve puzzles hidden throughout the battlefield, just like in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Keep your eyes peeled for Koroks and treasure!

Magic Rods:

By defeating certain enemies, you can pick up Magic Rods. These are fire, ice and lightning attacks.

These allow you to cast devastating elemental attacks that have a large area of effect. As such their energy is quickly used up but can be replenished by defeating elemental enemies.

Holding down the L Button (L) will bring up your Rod menu and slow the game down, allowing you to select the elemental rod you want, and the control stick allows you to control where you want to cast the attack.

Choosing the right rod for the occasion is elementary!

If you are fighting enemies who are standing on a patch of grass: The Fire Rod will set all the grass on fire and cause serious damage AND expand the range of the attack

Water and metal conduct electricity, and so on. Pay attention to your surroundings and use the elements to your advantage.

By the way, where did this tiny guardian come from? Why is it so determined to help?

Map

The Map will be your main place to select missions, help the people of Hyrule with requests, take on challenges, shop, unlock upgrades and even more! It can be a little overwhelming at first, but as you progress through the game, unlock more and more missions, that’s where the side menus simplify things and make it easy to navigate. Use the L and R Buttons to shift between Services, Map, Chapters, Challenges and Quests easily. Using this method, you can find exactly what you’re looking for.

We won’t cover everything in this guide, but here’s a few tips to getting the most out of the Map.

Blacksmith: Once you unlock this early in-game, it will allow you to fuse all your weak weapons into your strong ones and unlock extra abilities for those weapons too! Try lots of different combinations to find the perfect weapon for your playstyle.

Military Training Camp: Got a few characters you haven’t used in a little while and want to get them up to scratch? No problem! For just a nominal fee of rupees, you can instantly level up your characters to your strongest character’s level (or anywhere in between).

Challenges and Quests: These are side missions that are not required but are worth doing. Quests are non-combat quests that will power up a character by providing materials you pick up in battle or buy from merchants on the map. Challenges are combat quests with big rewards (quite often exactly what you need to complete a quest.)

There's so much more to see and do - so consider these few tips just the beginning! Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity features story, side quests, secrets and unlockable weapons/abilities that will keep you entertained well beyond the main game.

If you’re a fan of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and you’d like to experience a story set during Calamity Ganon’s assault on Hyrule, this is an exploration of the characters and world that will make you feel like a Champion.

Free demo available!

A free demo of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is now available! Play through the game's first chapter either by yourself or in local two-player mode as Link, Zelda and Impa. You can then carry your save data from the demo over to the full game and continue your quest to defeat Calamity Ganon!

You can download it from Nintendo eShop on your Nintendo Switch, or by clicking here!

Or if you’d like to purchase the full game, it’s available now!

Purchase Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity here!

- Purchase Bonuses -

If you have save data for the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the wild game, you can get the in-game Training Sword bonus item. Equip this weapon and you’ll automatically hold a Pot Lid as a shield. This combo may also trigger the occasional Perfect Guard!

To learn more about Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, head over to the official gamepage!

*To be able to purchase download games or download demos and free software from Nintendo eShop on the official website, you'll need to have a Nintendo Account which is linked to your Nintendo Switch console. You'll need to have your console registered as the active console for downloads for your Nintendo Account by visiting Nintendo eShop on the device you wish to download on at least once. For automatic download, your system must be updated and connected to the internet with automatic downloads enabled, and it must have enough storage to complete the download. To find out more, visit our Support section. Purchases made or demo downloads activated through the Nintendo website are processed via Nintendo eShop.

**For automatic downloads, your system must be updated and connected to the internet with automatic downloads enabled, and it must have enough storage to complete the download.

Multiplayer requires one compatible controller per player. Additional controllers (sold separately) may be required.

© Nintendo © KOEI TECMO GAMES All rights reserved. Licensed by Nintendo