Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is the third Hyrule Warriors game and a prequel to Tears of the Kingdom. It tells the story of the Imprisoning War, the ancient battle against Ganondorf that Zelda only learns about through memories in Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo announced it alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 in April 2025 and released it on November 6th, 2025, as a Switch 2 exclusive. Tears of the Kingdom's director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and series producer Eiji Aonuma supervised it to make sure it fits closely with that game.

It is also the first Zelda spin-off that Nintendo counts as part of the official story, so it has a place on the Zelda timeline. Zelda arrives in the distant past, in the age of Hyrule's founding, and is welcomed by her ancestors King Rauru and Queen Sonia. While she learns to control her power over time, the Gerudo king Ganondorf rises against them. To fight his army of monsters, Rauru names the leaders of Hyrule's peoples as sages and gives each a Secret Stone: Raphica of the Rito, Qia of the Zora, Agraston of the Gorons and Ardi of the Gerudo, alongside Zelda and Rauru's sister Mineru. New faces include a mysterious construct found in the Depths, its Korok friend Calamo, and Zelda's lady-in-waiting Lenalia.

How it plays. You take up to four warriors into each battle and switch between them as you fight through huge crowds of enemies, capture outposts and finish mission goals. Each warrior has combos built from weak and strong attacks, unique skills on a cooldown, and a Warrior Special that fills as you deal and take damage. Big enemies show a weak-point gauge when they leave themselves open; empty it to land a weak-point smash. Fighting together fills a Sync gauge, and two warriors with full gauges can team up for a Sync Strike, an idea inspired by the hand touch in Tears of the Kingdom.

Zonai devices from Tears of the Kingdom are your tools on the battlefield. They run on energy cells and act differently when you throw them: a Fan normally blows straight ahead, but thrown on the ground it makes an updraft, and adding a Shock Emitter turns that into an electrified tornado. Water washes away the sludge that protects some enemies. Between battles you help the people of ancient Hyrule and improve weapons with Zonaite steel. A second player can join in split screen, or through GameShare on another Switch or Switch 2, and only one copy of the game is needed. amiibo figures from the Zelda series can be scanned for items and materials.

Age of Imprisonment was the best-selling retail game in Japan in its launch week and had shipped over one million copies worldwide by January 2026. For the war's aftermath, see our Tears of the Kingdom section; for the earlier battle game set before Breath of the Wild, see Age of Calamity.