Nintendo is currently drip feeding early adopters of the Switch with some very high quality first-party games. The hybrid console launched with Zelda: Breath of the Wild available, and just this week saw the launch of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. If you've ploughed 60+ hours into Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart is surely welcome relief, but Nintendo wants you back in Hyrule this summer.
Details have dropped of the Breath of the Wild DLC Pack 1, which arrives at some point in the summer months. In order to unlock it you'll need to purchase the Expansion Pass for $19.99. In return, Nintendo will unlock the DLC Pack 1 in the summer and DLC Pack 2 in the holidays. As a bonus, three new treasure chests will appear in the Great Plateau area of the game once your purchase is complete.
As for the contents of DLC Pack 1, it promises to adds tens of more hours of gameplay through the addition of Trial of the Sword, Hero's Path Mode, Hard Mode, a Travel Medallion, New Armor, and a Korok Mask, all of which are detailed below.
Brand new content comes in the form of the Trial of the Sword challenge. Reaching a "certain sacred location" triggers the challenge which sees Link stripped of any weapons or equipment and tasked with defeating enemies in a room. When those enemies are cleared, the next room is entered until all 45 rooms are cleared. On completion, the Master Sword "is awakened," meaning it will permanently be in a glowing powered-up state.
Hard mode is as the name states, the same gameplay, but harder. Enemies will now regain health as you fight them so as to encourage quick takedowns, and may also have a higher maximum health. Every enemy in an area will be one level higher, so a Red Bokoblin in Normal mode will be a Blue Bokoblin in Hard mode, for example. Finally, there may also be enemies and treasure chests in the sky if you take the time to look up.
Nintendo is adding some new features and unlocks as part of the DLC Pack. There's eight new treasure chests placed around Hyrule each of which contains themed armor from previous Zelda games. Examples include Midna's Helmet, Majora's Mark, Tingle's Outfit, and Phantom Armor. There's also a Korok Mask to discover hidden in a treasure chest. When worn, it will shake when Link is near to a hidden Korok location (of which there are 900 to find). One final new treasure to discover is the Travel Medallion. Using it sets the player's current location as a fast travel point.
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Last but not least, there's the Hero's Path Mode. It's a new map feature showing the path walked by the player. It stores the path for up to 200 hours of gameplay. The idea behind this being it should help you better see what areas need to be revisited because you haven't explored them thoroughly.
DLC Pack 2, which you'll get by default through buying the Expansion Pass, promises to add a new dungeon, an original story, and some new challenges. Details of that will likely get released at the end of the summer.
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