Skip to main content

New Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom trailer reveals new ability, smoothie shops

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom – Traversing Hyrule Trailer – Nintendo Switch

Nintendo continues to tease out new information about The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, the surprise series entry that allows you to play primarily as Princess Zelda for the very first time. On Monday, it released a new trailer that delves into some of the areas you’ll explore, ways you’ll travel across the map, and a new ability called Bind.

Recommended Videos

Bind looks similar to many of Link’s abilities in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. It lets Zelda grab onto objects and creatures in the world and move them as she moves. There’s also Reverse Bond, which allows you to move along with a creature you bind to. So if you want to fly across an area, you can Reverse Bond onto a bird and it’ll bring you along for the ride.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

You can also use Bind on Echoes, the other previously announced Echoes of Wisdom ability that lets you create copies of objects.

The trailer also revealed several of the areas you’ll be exploring. For example, there’s Jabul Waters, which features a Sea Zora and River Zora that are at odds for unknown reasons. And, yes, there are underwater dungeons. There is also the Faron Wetlands, which is packed with Deku Scrubs who have a “voracious sweet tooth.”

There are a lot of places to move through, so the trailer announced two forms of travel (beyond walking, obviously). The first are waypoints, which you can unlock by finding them throughout the world and warping to them on your map. The second is a horse that you can use to move faster and run over weaker enemies. Using a carrot can summon them from anywhere.

One of the oddest additions are smoothie shops manned by business scrubs. Here, you can blend the ingredients you’ve gathered and drink smoothies for different effects, similar to how you can cook in the last two Zelda games. And, of course, there are different outfits for Zelda that can give her buffs.

Nintendo is still keeping a lot of details quiet, but the game is out on September 26 for Nintendo Switch, so we’ll know more soon.

Carli Velocci
Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…
The best smoothies in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Zelda makes a mixed smoothie in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.

Adventuring through Hyrule and the Still World is a tough job in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, but our heroic princess is up to the task. She's armed with the power of Echoes, various accessories, and even outfits to give her an advantage over the various mobs and hazards in the world. But one new trick Zelda has access to that will make her adventure much easier (and more delicious) is smoothies. These consumable items offer dozens of benefits, from health recovery to temporary stat increases. You'll be collecting ingredients by the handful while exploring that you can give to the Business Scrub to whip up into a powerful drink. The only question becomes which ones are the best that you should spend your precious inventory slots to carry with you. Let's explore the best smoothies in Echoes of Wisdom, what they do, and how to make them.
The best smoothies in Echoes of Wisdom

Each smoothie must be made at one of the various Business Scrub stands in exchange for two ingredients and 10 Rupees. There are a total of 69 different recipes to test out, which is way too many to keep in your head to remember the best ones. However, you should still make each smoothie at least once if you want to get 10 Golden Eggs easily.
Refreshing Mixed Smoothie

Read more
Nintendo reveals why Link isn’t the hero in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Link stuck on a big black and purple crack in a dungeon floor in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the first game to have Princess Zelda as the playable protagonist. Despite the series being supposedly about her legend, the hero has always been Link. In a Nintendo Ask the Developer interview published Tuesday, developers on the game at Grezzo explained why Link had to hit the sidelines.

While it was also just a matter of time for Zelda to star in her own game, the team also realized early on that if they wanted to go with the echoes concept -- the ability to copy and paste objects into the world to use for puzzles and combat -- Link couldn't be the one with that ability. He already has a sword and shield, after all.

Read more
After The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, it’s time for Zelda Maker
Key art for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.

We almost had a The Legend of Zelda video game where players could create their own dungeons. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which launches later this week, lets players obtain "echoes" of items and enemies, which they can explore, fight, and solve puzzles with. A new Ask the Developer interview from Nintendo revealed that this gameplay idea came from the original concept for Echoes of Wisdom: an "edit dungeon" concept where "players could create their own The Legend of Zelda gameplay," according to Grezzo game director Satoshi Terada.

Ultimately, the team went in a different direction after recognizing the potential of the echoes mechanic created for the "edit dungeon" concept. While I'm still quite excited to play Echoes of Wisdom, part of me is disappointed that we aren't getting a The Legend of Zelda dungeon maker game. It's OK that Echoes of Wisdom went in a different direction, but this is an idea Nintendo should certainly return to in the future.
The Zelda dungeon-maker game we didn't get
It's not uncommon for game developers to experiment with different gameplay concepts or ideas early on in development to find what works. Terada explained that in one of these early concepts, "Link could copy and paste various objects, such as doors and candlesticks, to create original dungeons." Later in the Ask the Developer interview, Nintendo director Tomomi Sano said that this "concept involved copying various things during your adventure out on the game field, then bringing them back to create a dungeon in a dedicated place."

Read more