Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment Review, Gameplay Impressions, Features and Videos

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is among the most epic games of 2025.

Serving as a prequel to the 2023 Game of the Year contender The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Age of Imprisonment is a must play not just for fans of TotK, but fans of the Zelda universe or those looking to experience it for the first time.

Developed by AAA Games Studio under Koei Tecmo, this hack-and-slash crossover between The Legend of Zelda and Dynasty Warriors may have been an underrated sleeper heading towards launch but is a true showcase for the Nintendo Switch 2. Age of Imprisonment is a grand, action-packed adventure that expertly improves upon the previous games in the series and should be the new benchmark in its genre.

Gameplay Impressions

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is an action-packed game featuring a compelling gameplay loop that captures the essence of beat-em-ups and hack-and-slash games. The genre lends itself to the ultimate power fantasy and Age of Imprisonment provides immense joy with its chaotic battlefields. Every battle is a dopamine hit as waves of enemies perish from the player destroying them with flashy, spectacular moves. 

The player builds up to powerful 'Unique' skills and Special Attacks, which can be used to unleash a ton of damage or wait to use it to counter an enemy's own powerful attack. By attacking an enemy's weak points, executing a perfect dodge to do a flurry attack or utilizing a Zonai device to inflict elemental damage, the player can break an enemy's shield gauge that will allow them to unleash a powerful attack on the enemy's weak point. 

During battle, the player can quickly open a menu by pressing right on the D-Pad to switch combat moves, techniques or items depending on what the player wants to use instead of being locked into a specific moveset. The Zonai devices, for example, do different techniques to turn battles into the player's favor. For example, obtaining a device that can act as a flamethrower or another that uses ice attacks to inflict damage and freeze enemies. These are essentially just versions of traditional magic types from other games but operate with a limited 'battery' so that the player can't just constantly spam elemental damage. 

There's a lot of gameplay variety across different types of segments, plus different movesets for characters and Zonai devices to unlock. There's difficulty options and a great tutorial suite as well but gameplay unfolds at an excellent pace. Players also earn materials during and after battle to use at camp to upgrade weapons, increase experience gained or speed up movement. This gameplay loop is highly engaging thanks to a ton of different characters, weapons, special moves and Zonai devices at the player's disposal. 

Across dozens of available missions, players will often go to battle with up to three other allies. Among the most satisfying aspects of the gameplay loop is the Sync Strike attack with an ally to tag team an enemy. While there is co-op available, the gameplay is extremely intuitive for a solo player being able to swap between characters at will. The player can instantly switch between main allies on the battlefield with the press of the up or down button on the D-Pad. It is truly amazing how the game flawlessly responds to this in the blink of an eye without any glitching or stuttering to keep the player highly engaged and not miss a single beat during battle.

The player can also send specific characters to certain objectives on the map to accomplish multiple goals at once because alternating between characters is so effortless. Age of Imprisonment showcases the impressive Switch 2 hardware spectacularly given the performance issues of Age of Calamity when it first released in 2020 on the original Switch. 

The Hyrule Warriors series is known for including a packed roster and Age of Imprisonment continues the tradition. There's tons of characters to unlock over the course of the story, which is easily among the very best stories told in the Zelda universe. For example, King of Hyrule, Rauru, and his sister Mineru, are standout characters in battle and throughout the story.

Overall, the voice acting for every character sounds great and the actual character designs are among the very best looking in the entire franchise. There's a lot of world building for players to get to know different characters. Age of Imprisonment is absolutely a game Zelda fans will want to experience, especially those who enjoyed Tears of Kingdom or those who want to eventually try Tears of Kingdom with this background context.

Characters of course gain experience from battle and the player will obtain materials at the end of battle, which can be used on the main map to unlock upgrades for specific characters, shops and training grounds. The core hack-and-slash gameplay is accompanied by specific optional challenges. Aside Quests allow the player to gain certain rewards for specific characters by completing certain conditions and supplying a specific amount of materials. For example, completing specific Aside Quests can upgrade basic attacks and combos, or provide additional health. These aren't mandatory and sometimes the player will just naturally complete most of them just playing the game but it encourages switching between characters to unlock different rewards instead of just playing with Zelda or other more popular characters. 

The game also features Challenge missions, which are separate from story missions that allow players to level up characters and gain additional rewards. These are great because they allow for experimentation by sometimes limiting how many party members can be deployed on the mission, plus time limits such as getting to a destination within five minutes to keep them quick and short. Considering the gameplay loop is so engaging and these missions can be so quick, it's absolutely a benefit to the player to complete them before continuing with the story.

Overall, the presentation of Age of Imprisonment is elite and carries the tradition set by Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. This is easily one of the best-looking games ever on a Nintendo platform as the movie-quality art style is absolutely stunning and looks incredible whether playing docked or in handheld mode. The soundtrack is equally fantastic as it conveys the perfect mood for each battle or cutscene. Although players have the option to skip cutscenes, Age of Imprisonment is one of the most cinematic games in the Zelda universe and the story is just as compelling as the gameplay to help set up these grand-scale battles for the story missions.

Conclusion

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is a sequel done right after taking the learnings of the previous games in the series. It excels in every area compared to the previous games, boasting an impeccable art style, compelling gameplay, phenomenal presentations, fantastic soundtrack, epic battles and grand story. 

Most importantly following Age of Calamity, Age of Imprisonment runs flawlessly on the Nintendo Switch 2. For fans who have been with the series since Hyrule Warriors first released on Wii U in 2014, Age of Imprisonment is the culmination of what anybody could ask for from the series. 

Age of Imprisonment features tons of characters, easter eggs, exceptional gameplay and is more accessible than ever. It is easily one of the best releases for Nintendo this year and should be the standard in the genre moving forward.