Twilight Realm

As Link regains consciousness and wanders out of the spring, he stumbles upon a strange portal -- a murky cloud of darkness leading to somewhere terrible. A hand juts out of the blackness and pulls him into the Twilight Realm. Sometime after leaving the Twilight Realm, Link goes after the Bokoblin king, dueling him for Colin's life. And that's about all the demo gives us. As for the events that follow immediately, very little has been said or shown about the Twilight Realm. But here's what we do know: the Twilight Realm, for those worrying, is not the Dark World (from A Link to the Past). The Dark World was parallel to the light world (our dimension). In any given area both a Light and Dark world version existed, often different. The Twilight Realm is simply a darkness which absorbs the area it covers. That area is now a dead realm, and only the one dead version of it exists. This darkness is spreading from Hyrule outward and our adventure begins when it reaches peaceful Toaru Village and sucks Link in through one of its many portals. (Interestingly enough, this Twilight Realm seems to incorporate a fair amount of cel-shading -- a small throwback to the glorious art style we saw in Wind Waker, without the entirety of the cartoonish stylings that so many people could never get beyond.)

As soon as Link enters this Twilight Realm, he is transformed into a wolf. This is apparently because, in the Twilight Realm, nothing from the normal world can exist in its standard state. This isn't just Link in the form of a wolf. This is something we've never seen in Link before. As a wolf he's feral, vicious, and brutal. He rampages through this terrible new world, destructive and terrifying, and is captured as a result. His actions in the Twilight Realm lead to him getting captured and chained up in some kind of castle. Why? Because he's dangerous. In addition, the cloaked figure in the beginning of the E3 trailer has been confirmed by Eiji Aonuma himself to be Princess Zelda, in mourning for the dying world of Hyrule. Eiji Aonuma has said that she has some role in Link's transformation to the wolf, but has remained tight-lipped as to just what that role is. And that strange creature you've seen riding the wolf in the trailers? That's Midna. The ever present cel-shading in this dead realm is most apparent here, especially in the strange headgear she wears. She frees wolf-Link from the castle after he's been imprisoned, and from that point on, Midna will always ride Link whenever you enter the Twilight Realm. --N-Sider--