If any game showed the limitations of the original Switch hardware, it was Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, which despite broadly positive reviews was taken to task for some serious frame rate issues. With the follow-up, Age of Imprisonment, on Switch 2, the devs seem especially keen to make the most of the new hardware's power.
"Nintendo Switch 2 has made it possible to include lots of enemies in our Warriors games," producer Ryota Matsushita says in a new developer interview video. "Not that just adding more enemies is a good thing, but it heavily contributes to the realism and excitement of the battlefield, which helped a ton."
"At the same time," Koei Tecmo's AAA games studio head Yosuke Hayashi adds, "it was also important that you could play with higher frame rates than the Nintendo Switch system. We were able to achieve that with this game."
The video includes a brief look at what appears to be 60 FPS gameplay footage, marking a major improvement over Age of Calamity, which often struggled to even maintain its 30 FPS target.
It does appear that there is a brief drop in performance during the footage, but with a higher baseline frame rate – and potential for performance to improve ahead of launch – it's looking like Age of Imprisonment will offer a much better experience than its predecessor.
Age of Imprisonment expands on the story shown in Tears of the Kingdom's flashback sequences. "As a story that you can only fully experience here, it doesn't just depict the battles of the Imprisoning War via a Warriors game," Matsushita adds. "It also shows life in the kingdom of Hyrule after Princess Zelda is sent back in time."
It's similar to how Age of Calamity served as a prequel to Breath of the Wild, but there's always been some debate on how well the two stories fit together. This time, the devs have been explicit that the new Hyrule Warriors offers a "canon" tale. Between the performance improvements and story clarity, it looks like the team is taking the lessons of the previous game to heart.
Age of Imprisonment is just one of many upcoming Switch 2 games on the horizon. For everything we'll see on June 5, check out our guide to Switch 2 launch games.
