[Editor’s Note: If you’d like more in-depth hands-on impressions of Age of Imprisonment, check out our recent preview.]

It’s time to go back – way back – with Zelda in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Set in the ancient past, during the founding of Hyrule, this hack-and-slash action game will pit the Princess and her allies against massive armies in their war against the Demon King Ganondorf. After several trailers, multiple runs of their hands-on demo at Tokyo Game Show, and probably too much time going over footage frame-by-frame, I’ve come away with seven key changes from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity that you should know before starting in Age of Imprisonment.

1) This is a True Prequel

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity had a fun story: reliving the war between The Champions and Calamity Ganon. Set 100 years before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it was an opportunity to spend extended time with fan favorite characters like Urbosa and Daruk, and take control of the Divine Beasts in the war. The only problem? It split off into a separate side story, making it non-canon to BoTW. That’s just fine for folks who love a good filler episode, but for those of us invested in the complex and often contradictory overarching Zelda story, that was a bit of a bummer. Fortunately for us lore Hounds, Age of Imprisonment is confirmed to be canon to the Tears of the Kingdom story. That means our adventure with Zelda, Rauru, Queen Sonia will tell us exactly how this ancient war with Ganondorf played out.

2) Combat is Evolving

The hack-and-slash combat at the center of Hyrule Warriors is alive and well, and it’s evolving further thanks to all new Unique Skills. These special moves are tailored towards specific situations and let you execute an aerial attack, targeted toward leaping of flying enemies, and a straightforward thrust attack to use against charging enemies. As the name implies, these are unique to each character. Zelda, for example, can unleash a barrage of Light Arrows from her Bow of Light to bring down flyers, or use Piercing Light on charging enemies, blasting them with a beam of light fired from the tip of her sword. These are strong options that will reward making the correct decisions quickly in the heat of battle, and if used correctly will do immediate damage to the Weak-Point gauges of tougher enemies, setting you up for devastating Weak Point attacks.

3) Sync Strikes are your Ace in the Hole

Zelda won’t be fighting alone, and the way her allies factor into battles is evolving thanks to the new team-up attacks. This goes beyond the simple souped-up special attacks from musou games of old, as now the pairs of warriors employ unique tactics when paired together – to devastating effects. Two examples I saw in my hands-on demo were Zelda paired with Raru firing a powerful, aimable beam of pure light that tears through enemies, and Zelda with Mineru summoning Mineru’s hulking construct to use as an enemy-smashing battlemech. Whether it’s every pairing on just select compatible duos, it’s clear Zelda and company will have a massive array of moves to fight back against Ganondorf and his army.

4) New Hardware Means New Tricks

Age of Imprisonment is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2, which means it takes full advantage of the more powerful hardware. While I haven’t done a full stress test just yet to see how far I can push the action before the framerate breaks down, I was impressed in my hands-on demo with how well it looked and ran. Also, fighting thousands of bokoblins is more fun with a friend, and Age of Imprisonment makes that easier thanks to GameShare. The idea is pretty simple: if one player has a Switch 2 and a copy of Age of Imprisonment, then another player can be their co-op body by joining the session from their own Switch or Switch 2. Just keep in mind that the session belongs to the player doing the sharing, so once they stop playing the session ends for both players.

5) Zonai Devices

So much of what made Tears of the Kingdom special was the way you could find and use Zonai devices – ancient machine parts – to aid your adventure. You can do that here too, as demonstrated when I tried out a Flame Emitter. This let me fry my enemies with an aimable stream of fire when I held it. It could also be activated and dropped on the ground to burn everything around it. I’ve thrown time bombs into the mouth of a Frox, and watched in trailers as Zelda combined the wind from a sideways fan with a Shock Emitter to create a massive electric cyclone.

6) The World Above and Below

Our entire demo took place in the Depths, in the area just beyond Mineru’s Lab. I didn’t get to see a map, but I do know that Age of Calamity covered the entire overworld, and the Depths spans an area just as large. That potentially doubles where levels could take place, and that’s before factoring in the Sky Islands, places we know from prior trailers where we will be fighting. Taken together, there is a lot of potential variety for where levels will take place, and it’s fair to wonder just how big Zelda’s fight in the ancient past will be.

7) Zelda and Link

Zelda, despite her title role in the series, has almost always been relegated to, at best, a secondary character, and at worst an off-screen motivation for Link on his adventures. While she was the star of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, her largely non-combat role in a retro-style adventure stands in stark contrast to her place in Age of Imprisonment, wielding a sword as the lead character as the vanguard in battle. Link, meanwhile, is in the “present” many centuries after the Imprisoning War takes place. While we have seen a construct with a strikingly Link-like visage show up in trailers and character art, we know this will be rare, and for Hyrule Warriors first, a case of Zelda taking the lead while Link steps out of the spotlight.

Even these seven items barely scratch the surface when it comes to what’s new in The Legend of Zelda: Age of Imprisonment, like a Korok warrior joining the fray, or an all new cast of Champions to defend Hyrule alongside Zelda. Fortunately you won’t need to wait much longer to uncover all the secrets from the great war near the founding of Hyrule. The Legend of Zelda: Age of Imprisonment launches on November 6, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2.