Will Link Be Playable in Echoes of Wisdom??

The ESRB website makes it seem pretty likely that Link will be playable in some way in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.

Footage by @BeardBear

Channel art by @PaintraSeaPea

[amebecca]

Maybe Zelda can make an echo of Link at some point to fight

[thajocoth]

If they don't make Link playable in the main game, they could have him be like the "Richter Mode" in Symphony of the Night... Like, an alternate playstyle of the game you unlock as a bonus mode for finishing it. That'd make it like two games in one.

[matthewmuir]

2:52 I can think of a few counterarguments to that:
1. This game is heavily reusing Link's Awakening, so gameplay as Link would easily just be carried over, making it be used for just an intro make more sense.
2. Majora's Mask has the player briefly play as human Link before Link is transformed into a Deku Scrub for the entire first section of the game, and that sudden shift in gameplay helped make the player feel uncomfortable and uneasy. I could absolutely see the Zelda team have the opening have a playable Link just to emphasize how different the gameplay as Zelda really is.

[skinnyluigi]

We've had so much playable Zelda. It's Link's turn to be the hero.

[knightofarkronia]

That bit at the beginning of the trailer where he was fighting Ganon looked more like gameplay than a cutscene.

[darkjaden-fe]

I know what this video is about but I love that the title and thumbnail look straight out of an alternate universe where Zelda has ALWAYS been the one playable, and we're theorizing about if we'll finally get a playable Link lol

[AndresLionheart]

Keep in mind that the ESRB doesn't play the games, they watch a video provided by the developer showing all the most extreme cases of whatever they should know (like violence, character designs). The intro cutscene where Link fights Ganon could have been part of that video to show that characters hit each other with swords.

[mediocrecreampuff]

Link being playable is probably just the prologue as others have said. Look at the ESRB rating for most Kirby games and it will mention a shooting segment, even though those are typically just limited to a single boss, a level if your lucky.

[henryaziz]

Maybe link becomes a summon of Zelda, in select sections of dungeons and such you have to summon link to fight a horde of enemies or something

[teapottanuki]

Games do sometimes pull the old "play as X til this point in the opening, now you're Y character" all the time. It can be used to give players a 'taste of power' for what they'll be like later in the game.
An alternative is that Link becomes the final main Echo that Zelda can obtain - since he would hold the Master Sword he effectively BECOMES her best weapon. That's honestly how I expect Nintendo would play it.

[ShurikanBlade]

I feel like if link has too much of a prominent role people will complain that "they couldn't even commit to a full Zelda game"

[JazGalaxy]

The ESRB doesn’t actually play the games that they oversee. So it’s possible that the footage they were submitted had the same footage as the Direct Content and they assumed the footage of Link fighting Ganon was gameplay.

[warfox]

"Nintendo wouldn't start you off as one character and then change you into a different character" *Forgets that Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess exist*

[diabeticman]

I can see the very start of the game playing as Link, then transitioning into playing as Zelda

[mista]

Imagine if they did something where you get the option to play zelda's story in this game but you also get to play links story, his experience. You get to choose whichever you want to play whenever you want kinda like the night missions in pikmin 4. The goal for each story would be to get to a meeting point and maybe the final boss or whatever you fight it together

[wcgwept]

If we actually play as Link in EoW, it’s probably small snippets of gameplay as we progress in the story as Zelda.

[toxicmanbaby]

Skies of Arcadia has one dungeon that's kinda like what you describe, where the party gets separated, and stuff you do with one group helps the other group and vice versa.

[Final_Flash]

You'll play as Link for the first 5 minutes like we saw in the Direct when he got sucked into the vortex, then you switch to Zelda for the rest of the game.

[AmandaBee]

It really makes the most sense to me that you play as link for the intro and then Zelda for the rest of the game. I'm guessing it'll be a fairly short sequence so you don't get TOO into it

[MyGoodFriendJon]

I'd bet this is just an AI watching the trailer and spitting out a summary. In the trailer, Link uses a sword to fight Ganon, then an arrow to free Zelda. What would make a description from Walmart be accurate or reliable? The idea of swapping between the two would be interesting, but I feel like that would almost be too big of a game to develop in that time since Link's Awakening.