Nintendo surprises its fans with a new Zelda game in which they can finally embody the princess

() – Nintendo revealed a new surprise for fans: a new Zelda title in which players will finally be able to embody the titular princess of the legendary fantasy series.

Nintendo has sold more than 140 million Zelda games since the first edition went on sale in 1986, making it one of the most successful franchises in video game history and delighting generations of fans on multiple consoles.

The new game, “The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom,” will launch on the Switch console on September 26, according to a statement from Nintendo.

The games’ multiple iterations typically revolve around the heroic elf Link, who spends most of his adventures trying to save Princess Zelda who, more often than not, has been kidnapped or mysteriously disappeared.

But this latest installment will be starring a woman.

“This time, Link disappeared. Now it’s Princess Zelda’s turn to take on the role of protagonist,” stated Eiji Aonuma, producer of the Zelda saga, in a video published by Nintendo.

Gameplay images released by Nintendo show that “Echoes of Wisdom” resembles both style and substance to 2019’s “Link’s Awakening,” the top-down puzzle platformer that boasted a cute cartoon design and which was itself a reboot of the 1993 Game Boy classic.

Zelda teams up with Tri, a mysterious fairy, and together they use magical powers to create echoes, what Nintendo describes as “imitations of things found in the environment.”

“Recreate those echoes whenever you want to solve puzzles and defeat enemies,” Nintendo says in its announcement.

“Use echoes from water blocks to reach new heights, make bridges from old beds, throw rocks at enemies… or find your own creative combination of echoes to do things your way,” the company explains.

The Zelda franchise has long been praised for its entertaining puzzle solving and innovative gameplay, which encourages players to both explore freely and approach problems in different ways.

Open-world gameplay has become a major feature of more recent titles, with 2017’s “Breath of the Wild” becoming one of Nintendo’s most successful and critically acclaimed titles.

That game’s sequel, last year’s “Tears of the Kingdom,” sold 10 million copies in just three days.

The release of a new Zelda game is the second surprise announcement Nintendo has made in recent weeks.

In early May, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said the company plans to release a follow-up to its popular Switch console by March 2025.

The announcement was welcome news for fans who have been pining for years for a possible successor to the Switch, which is now 7 years old.