Summary
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’s Hyrule may not be an entirely original world, with one eagle-eyed fan noticing that the game’s map shares some obvious similarities withA Link to the PastandA Link Between Worlds. But even if that’s the case, there’s already plenty of evidence to suggest thatThe Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdomwill heavily expand on those older maps rather than merely rehashing them.
The latest installment in the iconic series was announced with a reveal trailer during the latest Nintendo Direct. The June 18 broadcast confirmed thatEchoes of Wisdomwill feature Zelda as the main playable protagonistinstead of Link, in addition to offering an unconventional gameplay mechanic of creating object copies called “echoes.”
Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’s Hyrule Seems Similar to That From A Link to the Past
As was to be expected from a newZeldagame announcement, the reveal trailer prompted a lot of online fan speculation. One particularly interesting contribution to theongoingZelda:Echoes of Wisdomdiscussionwas recently made by Reddit user FelipeKits, who noticed that the game’s version of Hyrule appears to be rather familiar-looking. Specifically, the landscape seen around the one-minute mark in the June 18 trailer features several landmarks that match the Light World map used forA Link to the PastandA Link Between Worlds.
The list of corresponding locations includes Hyrule Castle and its immediate surroundings, as well as the river that extends into a lake to the south of the stronghold. The landscape seen in the trailer appears to offer a view of that lake from the cliff to the southeast.
Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Is All But Certain To Also Feature Original Locations
In spite of these similarities, the chances ofEchoes of Wisdommerely rehashing the map from these beloved series entries appear slim. After all,A Link Between World’s version of Hyrulewas already slightly different from itsA Link to the Pastcounterpart. The biggest changes were made to the Dark World, which was called Lorule in the 1991 game. ButA Link Between Worldsalso introduced some other tweaks, with the 2013 game featuring entirely new dungeons and somewhat different world progression, largely because it locked a larger chunk of the map at the beginning.
More to the point, the June 18 trailer clearly shows some areas that didn’t exist in either game, including a snow-covered mountain, rainforest region, volcano, and some kind of town that appears to belong toThe Legend of Zelda’s Gerudo people. How similar its map actually is toA Link to the PastandA Link Between Worldsshould become clear no later than September 26, whenThe Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdomlaunches exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
WHERE TO PLAY
Save Hyrule—this time with the wisdom of Princess Zelda!The people of Hyrule are being stolen away by strange rifts—and with a certain swordsman among the missing, it’s up to Princess Zelda to save her kingdom in the latest adventure in The Legend of Zelda™ series!Team up with the ethereal creature Tri and use the Tri Rod to create “echoes,” which are imitations of things you find in the environment—then recreate those echoes whenever you like to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Use echoes like water blocks to reach new heights, make bridges out of old beds, throw rocks at foes, or find your own combination of echoes to do things your way. You can even make echoes of monsters to fight at your side in combat!
