Skip to main content

Nintendo celebrates Zelda's 30th anniversary with new amiibo, 'Hyrule Warriors' content

nintendo zelda skyward sword heads to wii u eshop for 30th anniversary skywardsword
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Nintendo plans to honor The Legend of Zelda series’ 30th anniversary with an array of upcoming releases, expanded Hyrule Warriors Legends content, and uniquely themed amiibo figurines that will launch through the end of the year.

To mark the occasion, Nintendo has released a Wii U Virtual Console version of 2011’s The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which is now available digitally via the console’s eShop for $20.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword introduced the floating city of Skyloft, and gameplay alternates between flight-based exploration and combat that unfolds across a series of surface overworlds. Like the original Wii release, the Wii U Virtual Console version of Skyward Sword demands precise motion-controlled swordplay, and requires a Wii Remote along with a connected Wii MotionPlus gyroscope accessory.

Nintendo also revealed an upcoming slate of The Legend of Zelda-themed amiibo figurines that are compatible with a number of series releases across the 3DS and Wii U. New figures include the pixel-rendered 8-Bit Link, Link as he appeared in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Toon Link and Toon Zelda figures inspired by The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

All Zelda-themed amiibo can be scanned by the Wii U GamePad to unlock new content in the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The four figures will hit retail on December 2.

The 3DS brawler Hyrule Warriors Legends, meanwhile, has received a new batch of downloadable content to celebrate Zelda’s 30th anniversary. Players who download the third Hyrule Warriors Legends DLC pack will receive the new Sand Wand weapon for Toon Link, along with a dimension-hopping train from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks that can be summoned to mow down enemy hordes.

The new DLC pack also adds Toon Zelda as a playable character, along with a new Adventure Mode map. Players can download the Hyrule Warriors Legends “Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks Pack” from the in-game “Extras” menu starting today.

Editors' Recommendations

Danny Cowan
Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…
5 big details from Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s new trailer that you may have missed
Link stands near allied humans and Gorons in Tears of the Kingdom.

The final trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has arrived, and it's full of new information about the upcoming Switch game. We got a better look at its open world, saw many new characters, and got another peek at all kinds of vehicles that players can make. In fact, the trailer was so crowded with new information -- and Tears of the Kingdom's mechanics and story are still so shrouded in mystery -- that there are some things that you might have missed, leaving a ton to speculate on.
When watching it again, we found a ton of curious details that had us wondering about unannounced features. We've rounded up five details in particular that could have some major implications for the gameplay and story of Tears of the Kingdom. 
Link has companions

One of the most surprising things about this new trailer is that it seems to confirm a companion system, or at least NPCs that are way more active than they ever were in Breath of the Wild. During a montage around the 1:38 mark, we see Link riding a horse through an active battle between humans and Ganondorf's forces. Later on, after the three-minute mark, we see new Rito, Human, Zora, Goron, and Garudo working with Link. The Zora soldier specifically helps Link fight an enemy in a two-on-one encounter.
Companions aren't a new feature to open-world games; titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim have it. Still, these more active NPCs and an entire potential companion mechanic highlight just how deeply core gameplay systems have been modified for Tears of the Kingdom.
New characters and enemies

Read more
Don’t expect Zelda’s $70 price to become the new Switch standard, says Nintendo
Link looks at his hand in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be Nintendo's first Switch game to be priced at $70. News that Tears of the Kingdom, a sequel to one of the bestselling and most critically acclaimed titles on the system, will have an increased price compared to its predecessor came as a surprise over three-and-a-half years after its announcement. It also raised questions about what the future of pricing for Nintendo games will be, especially as Sony, Microsoft, and third-party publishers all upped the cost of their new games in recent years. 
While Nintendo will release Tears of Kingdom at $70, a spokesperson for the company tells Digital Trends that this will not always be the case for its first-party games going forward. 
"No," the spokesperson said when Digital Trends asked if this is a new standard. "We determine the suggested retail price for any Nintendo product on a case-by-case basis." 
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Official Trailer #2
To get more insight into the price shift, I spoke to Omdia Principal Analyst George Jijiashvili, who explains what has caused the price of games to go up in recent years and how Tears of the Kingdom demonstrates that Nintendo will "remain flexible about first-party title pricing." Ultimately, Nintendo fans are finally starting to feel the impact of inflation that's been sweeping across the game industry, even if it's only "on a case-by-case basis" for now.
The price is right
Nintendo claims that not every one of its significant first-party game will be $70, and we can actually already see that in action. Preorders just went live for Pikmin 4, which launches on July 21, after Tears of the Kingdom, and it only costs $60. Still, Zelda's price tag indicates that going forward, Nintendo will at least consider raising the price of its most anticipated games to $70. But why start with Tears of the Kingdom?  
When asked why it chose Tears of the Kingdom as its first $70 Nintendo Switch game, a Nintendo spokesperson simply reiterated that the company will "determine the suggested retail price for any Nintendo product on a case-by-case basis." Still, it's a surprising choice for Nintendo to make that pricing change to just one exclusive game almost six years into the Switch's life span. Jijiashvili thinks the choice to do this with Tears of the Kingdom was a pretty apparent one for Nintendo, although it won't apply to everything going forward.
"If you are going to make a game $70, it's going to be the follow-up to one of your most critically acclaimed and bestselling games ever," Jijiashvili tells Digital Trends. "I don’t think that this means that $70 will become the standard price for all major Nintendo releases. It's worth noting that Metroid Prime Remastered is priced at $40. It's clear that Nintendo will remain flexible about first-party title pricing."

It makes basic financial sense for Nintendo to ask for a little bit more for a game it knows will be one of the biggest releases of 2023. But what factors in the game industry and world's economy at large caused Nintendo to make this decision? 
Priced Out
For more than a decade, people got comfortable with AAA video games being priced at $60. Of course, there were occasional exceptions to this rule, but it was seen as an industry standard until the dawn of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Publisher 2K was one of the first to announce a price increase, and companies like EA, Sony, and Microsoft have all followed suit. Jijiashvili chalks this up to inflation-related pressure on game publishers.
"The games industry has already been experiencing a lot of inflationary pressure," he explains. "AAA games are much more expensive to make now than they used to be, but prices have actually been declining in inflation-adjusted terms -- if prices had risen with inflation since 1990, they would now be over $90. On top of that, we’ve had a big burst of general inflation, meaning that publishers are looking at big increases in everything from salaries to tools. It’s going to be really hard for most publishers to avoid passing on all those extra costs at some point."
Jijiashvili provided us with a graphic created by Omdia that "shows what the typical price points for each generation would look like if you adjusted for inflation." As you can see, the inflation-adjusted prices are only exponentially growing, and the big game pricing shifts the graph highlights were all technically not even enough to keep up with inflation when they happened. 

Read more
Our 5 biggest predictions for the September Nintendo Direct: Metroid, Zelda, and more
Samus gives a thumbs up in Metroid Prime.

Following months of Nintendo-related leaks and a third-party showcase in June, the second full-fledged Nintendo Direct of 2022 is finally happening. February's show had neat reveals of games like Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, Mario Strikers: Battle League, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and Nintendo Switch Sports. Now, Nintendo Switch players hope the September 2022 Nintendo Direct will give a clear idea of what to expect throughout the rest of this year and into the first months of 2023.
Ahead of the showcase's announcements, rumors about a couple of key Nintendo classic remasters heavily circulated. There are also delayed Nintendo Switch titles that we hope finally get release dates. Although there's a chance that none of the following predictions will come to fruition tomorrow, it's still fun to guess what might pop up. As such, here are five announcements we hope to see at the September 2022 Nintendo Direct.
Metroid Prime returns

 
Metroid fans ate well last year with the release of Metroid Dread, but they've still waited since 2017 for the long-delayed Metroid Prime 4. Although there's nothing to suggest that Metroid Prime 4 will pop up here just yet, a remaster or remake of Metroid Prime seems much more likely. A Nintendo Switch version of the GameCube classic was subject to rumors for years, but rumblings of the game's existence really ramped up in 2022. 
From Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb to prolific Nintendo leaker Emily Rogers, the more reliable parts of the gaming rumor mill say that some sort of Metroid Prime rerelease project is in the works at Nintendo. Grubb even claims that it's coming this year, so Nintendo would need to reveal it very soon if that's true. If it is real, the biggest question surrounding Metroid Prime on Nintendo Switch is just how much of a reimagining it is. Will it be an HD port, a more substantive remaster, or a from-the-ground-up remake? Hopefully, we won't have to wait much longer to find out. 
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess get rereleased 

Read more