For centuries the princesses waited. First, for some gentleman to free them. And, then, for someone to deign to also write different stories, where they would not only have to wait for salvation locked in a tower. The young Zelda, even more paradoxical, has headed the title of one of the most famous and applauded video game sagas for decades. Her prominence, however, was always for Link, the boy who had to rescue her from her. Until now. Almost 40 years after the launch of the first The Legend of Zeldaback in 1986, players will finally control the princess character in Echoes of Wisdomthe new installment of the series, which will go on sale on September 26 for the Switch console, as announced by Nintendo, the company responsible for the work.
“This time Link has disappeared. Now it’s Princess Zelda’s turn to take on the role of protagonist. You may be wondering: so Zelda will fight with a sword? “We wanted to create a new game model that broke the conventions seen in old titles in the series,” said Eiji Aonuma, producer of the video game, in a video released by Nintendo. At the beginning, the small trailer published by the company shows how Link saves the princess for the umpteenth time, just before disappearing into a kind of portal that opens under her feet. Together with Tri, a little fairy, Zelda will set out to find him. “He saves the kingdom of Hyrule, this time with the help of Princess Zelda’s wisdom. The inhabitants of Hyrule are slowly disappearing due to strange rifts that have suddenly appeared, and among the missing is a certain well-known swordsman. Now it is in the hands of Princess Zelda to save her kingdom,” notes the synopsis of the game on the Nintendo website.
The style of Echoes of Wisdom reminds of Link’s Awakeninga 2019 video game that in turn was a reboot in a modern key from the 1993 classic of the same name: that is, a title with a third-person view and from above, with tender cartoon graphics, where the character must solve puzzles, overcome platforms and defeat enemies to advance. “Create replicas like water blocks to reach high places or old beds to build bridges, throw stones at enemies or combine replicas in creative ways to do things your way. “You can even create replicas of monsters to help you in battles!” reads the Nintendo website.
After all, creativity has always been one of the keys to the Zelda saga and, especially, its latest installment, Tears of the Kingdom, which has received dozens of awards, sold tens of millions of copies and has been celebrated, among other aspects, precisely for the freedom it allows players to invent different ways to reach an objective or a place, and to entertain themselves with dozens of possibilities and activities outside the main plot. More generally, the saga has sold more than 100 million copies in these four decades, making it one of the most successful in video game history.
This is the second relevant surprise from Nintendo in a few weeks, since at the beginning of May it reported that in March 2025 it will launch the successor to its Switch console. Although the competition does not remain silent either: almost all the major video game companies have rushed to announce, in recent weeks, highly anticipated projects, of Gears of War: E-Day a Metroid 4, or to try to multiply the expectation for those who are about to arrive, such as Star Wars: Outlaws o Indiana Jones and the great circle. All, of course, in a context in which the video game industry has carried out more than 10,000 layoffs so far this year.