You control a large cast of familiar characters fighting through massive battlefields packed with hundreds of weaker enemies at once, mixing light attacks, heavy attacks, and special moves to clear crowds quickly. The story fills in events before a well-known disaster in the wider series. Combat is more about crowd control and area capture than one-on-one duels, so it can feel repetitive if you were hoping for tighter combat.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes
The short version
As a prequel to Breath of the Wild, it delivers real emotional weight, something musou spin-offs rarely bother with, even if the button-mashing combat won't convert genre skeptics.
In the hands
Clearing battlefields of hundreds of enemies with flashy special attacks is mindless fun, and swapping between champions keeps the moment-to-moment combat from growing too stale.
Look and sound
The frame rate strains under the weight of all those enemies on screen, but the Hyrule locales are lovingly rebuilt and the orchestral rework of the soundtrack hits hard.
The long haul
Fans of the game it's tied to will get the most out of it, especially the story beats. Musou newcomers should know the combat depth is thin compared to the narrative payoff.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
You control one of many Zelda characters standing in the middle of a huge battlefield swarming with hundreds of small enemies, and combat mostly involves mashing an attack button to chain together a big flashy combo, then using a stronger special attack to clear out a whole crowd at once. Each character controls very differently: Urbosa summons crackling lightning, while Zelda uses ancient Sheikah technology, so switching characters between missions genuinely changes how a fight feels rather than just changing the skin on the same moves. The story unfolds a hundred years before Breath of the Wild, showing the actual battle that led to the events players may already know from that game, which gives even simple missions real emotional stakes for returning fans. Maps show dozens of available missions at once, mixing main story battles with countless smaller side objectives.
Most of your time is spent in these large battles, capturing outposts, defeating commanders, and clearing waves of enemies while keeping an eye on multiple objectives happening across the map at once. As you progress, battles introduce tougher enemy commanders and bigger crowds, and unlocking new runes and weapon upgrades for each character adds a surprising amount of depth to how you approach fights. A single mission can take fifteen minutes to well over half an hour depending on its objectives, and the sheer number of side missions means total playtime for completionists stretches well past fifty hours. A split-screen co-op mode lets a second player join the campaign and take control of a second character.
Session to session, the appeal is the simple pleasure of watching hundreds of enemies scatter as you plow through them, plus the added weight of seeing characters from a game many players already love facing their doomed fight. What might frustrate you is a noticeable drop in smoothness when the screen fills with enemies, especially in co-op, along with a format that is repetitive by nature and may wear thin on players who are not already fans of Zelda's cast. It is a generous, often touching spin-off for people who want more time with these specific characters rather than a new core Zelda adventure.