Breath of the Wild was a revolutionary game for The Legend of Zelda in a lot of ways. It broke away from the action-adventure formula by introducing Skyrim-esque elements. Link can explore the world at his own pace, complete the story in his own order, and spend as time as he likes on traversing the wilderness in search of resources and equipment. However, arguably the most shocking change Nintendo made in Breath of the Wild was introducing voice actors for the major characters. Spoken dialogue was a fresh and exciting change for the Zelda games. However, some players felt a little let down by the voice acting because the game wasn’t fully voiced, only certain characters and certain scenes had voice acting.
Now that it’s moving beyond the first Breath of the Wild, Nintendo has the opportunity to correct that in Breath of the Wild 2. It looks like a precedent’s already been set, however, thanks to evidence from the demo of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. The Breath of the Wild prequel indicates that partially voiced dialogue is the status quo. Some fans are probably frustrated to learn that Nintendo is still doing this halfway, and disappointed about what it might mean for the next game.
To be fair to Age of Calamity, it’s probably going to have a higher percentage of voiced dialogue than Breath of the Wild. However, that’s largely by virtue of Age of Calamity being a story-driven game, rather than the fairly sandbox model of its source material. Between each mission in the game, there’s probably going to be plenty of voiced cutscenes. Seeing these regularly might please fans wanting to hear more from their favorite characters, but it’s hard to make up for the fact that the battle dialogue isn’t voiced. Even if there’s lots of cutscenes in Age of Calamity, the majority of the talking lies in the actual gameplay, and if that dialogue isn’t voiced, it’s a letdown.
This seems to set a precedent that, although Nintendo is open to its Zelda characters speaking out loud, it only wants them to speak in specific circumstances. Maybe it wants players to be able to pause and appreciate voice acting, rather than having to split attention between dialogue and the heat of battle. Regardless of Nintendo’s intention behind handling voiced characters this way, it means a pattern is starting to develop leading up to the much anticipated Breath of the Wild 2. Unless there’s some drastic changes in design, that game will probably be only partially voiced too.
It’s probably at Nintendo’s behest that Age of Calamity doesn’t have full voice acting. Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors series, the classic hack and slash franchise that Hyrule Warriors spins off of, has had voiced battle dialogue for many installments. The inclination at Koei Tecmo is probably to get the game voiced, but the first Hyrule Warriors game acquiesced to Zelda tradition and kept the dialogue silent. It looks like in Age of Calamity the developers are acquiescing to a new Zelda standard. It may be a spinoff, but what Nintendo says, goes.
It’s something of a shame that that’s apparently the model that Nintendo wants to go with. Some players can’t help feeling that only implementing voice acting halfway does a disservice to The Legend of Zelda. Adding spoken word to the games is a great update to the franchise formula that opens up a lot of potential. Voices go a long way to characterizing anyone from the protagonists to the shopkeepers, as games like Skyrim demonstrate. Maybe Nintendo just needs a little time to wade into the waters before it makes sure every bit of dialogue is spoken.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity releases November 20th for the Nintendo Switch.
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