Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’s much-anticipated DLC is going to start releasing soon. After an initial set of smaller bonuses on May 28, the first of two waves will arrive, bringing with it a huge swathe of new content and replay value. While the Warriors game was not lacking in content, as with most games in its parent franchises, it still felt a little light compared to the massive amount of content that was eventually rolled into the first Hyrule Warriors. Fans are hoping that the Expansion Pass fixes that somewhat, both by providing new characters to play with and new challenges.
Some time after the purchase bonus for the Expansion Pass releases, it can be expected that a trailer for the main DLC wave will be released. This will most likely be rolled into a Zelda 35th anniversary block in Nintendo’s mid-June E3 conference. The DLC itself will release some time later that month. That should leave enough time for word of the new content to spread, and get everyone pumped to actually engage with it once it’s out. The broad contents of this package were confirmed back in the February Nintendo Direct, but what will specifically be added to Age of Calamity is still the subject of much speculation.
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The main thing that casual players are looking for in Age of Calamity are more characters and more Zelda references on top of that, and that’s what the first DLC wave is looking to provide. Robby and Purah, the goofy pop-rock scientists, are all but confirmed to be in this initial wave. The two of them are present on the poster for the Expansion Pass, and their models are already present in some missions anyways. Further likely characters are the villainous Sooga and Astor, both of whom also have character models in the game, and were the subject of an alleged datamine that pulled voice clips referencing them. Players can expect more DLC characters later, but for now these new ones should suffice.
That’s in large part due to the fact that the “newly added weapon types” mentioned in the Expansion Pass’ roadmap are also functionally new characters. In the first Hyrule Warriors, much of the cast received multiple different playable versions based around different iconic weapons from the Zelda series. Whether that franchise fanservice will happen here and for which characters are up in the air, as Age of Calamity has gone out of its way to accurately adapt every weapon and fighting style in Breath of the Wild. With Link already receiving a new weapon ahead of the first main wave (which might involve horseback riding, similar to something the first Hyrule Warriors’ Link used), it remains to be seen which lucky fighters will get new iterations.
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New characters are great, but grinding their levels and equipment won’t be much fun without new content to do it in. To that end, the Expansion Pass will also be adding new challenges that can be found at the Royal Ancient Lab. This locale’s Breath of the Wild equivalent was destroyed, so it’s not entirely clear what these challenges will be. There is a good chance that they will see players teleporting around Hyrule to take on challenge missions similar to those found in the first Hyrule Warriors, and fight tough monsters under various restrictions. These are probably meant to supplement the lack of endgame content in the base game.
And that’s not all players will have to test their mettle against. New enemies will also come as part of this package, and will probably feature prominently in the Royal Ancient Lab challenges. These may include Malice variants of common enemies such as Bokoblins, Lizalfols, Chuchus, Keese, Octoroks, and Pebblits. This new designation can extend to mini-bosses who don’t have it yet, like Moblins and Wizzrobes. There may be other surprises lying in wait for unsuspecting players, including powerful Blight Ganon bosses. Players will have to wait and see what the Expansion Pass has in store for them.
However, this will all be contained in the first wave of DLC. The remainder will not be released until November 2021, and will include a significant amount of content that expands upon the base game. The playable roster will expand further, as will the list of battlefields, but of special interest is the mention of new battle skills for existing characters. The entire cast is already fully featured, so there’s no telling what this could mean. The mention of new character vignettes is also mysterious, and could include a number of things. It would be great to see the extended cast interact, and some of the newly playable characters from the Expansion Pass could also receive more background. Combined with the presence of new stages, it seems possible that there will be a subtle story expansion in the second wave of DLC.
Another thing that definitely won’t be in the first DLC wave, but could be in the second, is references to Breath of the Wild 2. BotW 2 is currently an unknown quantity, having gone radio silent after its reveal. More news on it has been promised soon, and that will probably come to fruition with the upcoming Nintendo E3 Direct. Once some firm new information of BotW 2 is out in the world, and the game’s release date is fast approaching, Nintendo and Tecmo may feel comfortable adding an element from that game into Age of Calamity. This could be limited to a version of Link using the powers of the strange arm from BotW 2’s reveal trailer, but that would still fall under the banner of “new battle skills for existing characters.”
Despite the roadmap’s descriptions, there is a lot that is still unknown about Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity’s Expansion Pass. More information is expected to come out about it in the coming two months, and by then it should be much more clear both what is coming to Age of Calamity, and how that will fit into the Zelda 35th anniversary celebration as a whole.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is available now on Nintendo Switch.