You can play the newest Zelda game alongside two other people. You can play it by yourself. But you can’t, according to director Hiromasa Shikata, play Zelda: Triforce Heroes with a party of two.
Bad news for anyone who was hoping to plough through the co-op dungeon game — announced for 3DS during Nintendo’s conference on Tuesday — with a single friend or significant other. There’s an optional mode that lets you play against one or two other friends, Shikata says, but the new Zelda is mostly comprised of deep, intricate dungeon levels that require parties of either one or three.
“You can’t play regular courses with two people,” Shikata said during an interview at E3 earlier this week, speaking through Nintendo’s excellent translator Tim O’Leary. In order to complete the game’s various puzzles and defeat its boss battles, you’ll need to be able to form a full party of three.
Two-person parties can play against one another in an optional mode, but not in the main game. “There is a mode within the game called the Colosseum, where it’s completely competitive, there’s no cooperation, it’s a battle-mode, basically,” Shikata said. “You can play 1-on-1 or 1-on-1-on-1, so you can play with two players.”
What happens if you’re playing with two friends and one of them is called in for brain surgery? “If someone drops out or quits, you’ll get to a game over screen,” Shikata said. It will save your progress, but you won’t be able to continue unless you find a replacement or go solo.
The good news: it sounds like Triforce Heroes will be worthwhile even for those of us who prefer to play Zelda games by ourselves. If you’re playing alone, the other two Links in your dungeon party will turn into brainless dolls that you can control with the touchscreen and manipulate to solve puzzles. And Shikata says during testing, plenty of folks at Nintendo felt like playing alone was way more satisfying.
“Actually there are some people [on our team] who prefer the singleplayer mode,” Shikata said.
Comments
13 responses to “You Can’t Play Zelda: Triforce Heroes With Only Two People”
Well that puts it off my radar then.
Oh, guess I’ll be stumbling through the game in single player then
It boggles my mind that for a company that is thought to make the “party consoles” they can be so tonedeaf. If this had 2 player I probably would’ve bought a second 3DS for my fiancée.
This so much, I definitely would have used it as an excuse to buy an XL and given my wife or one of the kids my old one so we could play together. Along similar lines, Splatoon would have been a day one purchase for us if it had 4-player local multiplayer. I may get it eventually but it seems like a huge omission.
Same. I already bought my wife a 2DS and have been looking for games that we can play together. It’s been harder than I thought. I thought this would be perfect. Guess we’ll have to keep looking.
Seriously, someone clearly didn’t think this through properly. It’s already an irregular choice being a party of three, but to make it a binary one between 1 or 3? The hell are they thinking?
It’s a sequel to Four Swords, the game that required 3 link cables if you wanted to play it as intended.
Which allowed for 2 player coop or full 4 players. I don’t see what you’re trying to address with bringing up 4 swords. The gamecube sequel made it better by making fluid 1 to 4 player gameplay. So if anything, this is a step back, which is what everyone here is saying.
If not for the CDI, the Four Swords games would be the most divisive in the Zelda series and most of that is due to the forced co-op (compounded by link cable requirement). With that kinda legacy, I’m just not surprised by poor direction. The best I’ll say about this, is that it has online functionality but a year after launch, when everyone’s finished it and the hype’s died down, how easy will it be to find strangers? If you can’t even play the thing, who would buy this?
I only have one friend that plays Zelda as well. that sucks.
Really felt like Nintendo missed the boat this year. Disappointing announcements, boring looking titles, that abysmal looking Metroid game, no new Pokemon Snap…
This is kind of strange. They have bots for single player but you can’t have a host controlled bot for two player?
i cant contain my disappointment.
when i saw the announcement for this i was very excited, yay finally the four swords ish game ive been waiting for since the gamecube version.
yay i have 2 3DS’s and one very willing zelda co-op partner.
then this article comes around, i really dont know if i will bother.
i never liked four swords as a single player game. i doubt i will like this either
What a piece of crap… WHY does Nintendo even waste their time with this?
A game specific for 3 players… I have NEVER EVER in my life played ANYTHING with 3 players. On Consoles it’s ALWAYS 2 player with a friend, or 4 Players when more people are there. Don’t even know why, but NEVER played 3 player…
Having a 3 player option in games with 2-16 players, is perfectly fine, a great thing, but making the game REQUIRE to have NO MORE OR LESS then 3 players… Never heard something like this before…
Really wondering if the dust will ever come off my 3DS or Wii U ever again…
Even all the 3DS games that are so hyped by the 5 year olds, are complete crap, once you look into them. Always the same problems… Online MP is dead, people cheat, Controls are messed up… EVERY single time, there is some tiny easy fixable thing, that ruins the whole game…