Nintendo’s new version of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is shrouded in secrecy, to the point where a faithful remake would only be a disappointment.
When Nintendo revealed it was doing a remake of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, the announcement was strangely elusive. The trailer – a glimpse across the opening tapestry and an aerial shot of Young Link curled up on a haystack mattress – was likely prepared way before the game’s existence was leaked by insiders. Nintendo knew the leak had happened though, so it was hard to understand why they didn’t show more when the original game is 28 years old.
It’s been over two months since the reveal and, last week, Nintendo pushed out a news notification on Switch 2 consoles to remind people that the game is still set to launch this year. ‘Don’t forget’ the Ocarina Of Time remake is still coming in 2026, it emphasises. It’s as close as Nintendo will ever get to admitting it mishandled the reveal, as it attempts to remind more casual fans that it even happened.
The absence of any details might be another by-product of Nintendo’s traditionally unpredictable marketing whims. However, the prolonged silence only allows brains to stew on the possibilities – and after all this time, it’s getting harder to imagine that a remake of one of its most influential games will simply be a 1:1 recreation dolled up with pretty graphics.
First off, it’s important to understand Ocarina Of Time’s significance. This wasn’t just the first Zelda game in 3D, it was a milestone for action adventure gaming in general. The size and scope, the depth and variety of gameplay, and mechanical innovations such as the Z-targeting camera system ensured it was second only to Super Mario 64 in influencing gaming as a whole – with Rockstar Games admitting it was a major influence on GTA 3.
Much like A Link To The Past before it, and Breath Of The Wild after, it was a significant entrypoint for a wave of new fans. Just like those two games, it’s held up as one of the greatest games of all time – and held that position, without much debate, for the PS1 era and beyond.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.
Nintendo has remade games before – including The Legend Of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Metroid: Zero Mission, and Star Fox – but they’ve mostly felt like stop-gaps in the release schedule. In fact, Ocarina Of Time got the same treatment on the Nintendo 3DS in 2011, which was called a remake but felt more like a slightly altered remaster.
The decision to do another remake for Ocarina Of Time may have been made out of a desperation to fill the Switch 2’s release calendar. Between the countless Switch 2 Editions and the lack of heavy hitters, like the next 3D Mario or Animal Crossing, there’s a sense Nintendo is slowly adjusting to longer development cycles.
However, the fact this is billed as Nintendo’s big Christmas game, and that it exists in the same year as Zelda’s 40th anniversary, doesn’t scream another easy filler, but a remake with more weight and effort behind its existence.
Nintendo has other reasons to plunge resources into a Zelda remake. A live action Legend Of Zelda film adaptation is due on April 30 next year, and while it’s unclear what games the movie will draw from, the casting alone seems to point to a strong Ocarina Of Time influence. So you can bet there’ll be a second wave of marketing for the Ocarina Of Time remake – and probably the Switch 2 Editions of Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom – when the film does come out.
When you consider all these angles, it’s difficult to imagine Nintendo approaching this remake in a faithful, conservative fashion – especially as you can play the original Zelda: Ocarina Of Time right now on Nintendo Switch Online. Nintendo needs to justify the game’s existence, and a possible £60 price tag, at a time when GTA 6 is threatening to suffocate the entire Christmas period.
Some fans may pay up for a mere graphical makeover, but Ocarina Of Time deserves some kind of reinvention. Flesh out the scope of the towns, inject some activities into the barren Hyrule Field or, better yet, make Zelda a playable character.
She has a more active role in the second half of the game and the ability to play as her in an action role would be a unique selling point for a remake. After all, Nintendo has given Zelda a bigger spotlight over recent years, as seen in Echoes Of Wisdom, and her role in the movie seems much more prominent than in most of the actual games.
Many will be resistant to the idea of too much Breath Of The Wild DNA creeping into Ocarina Of Time, but aspects like cooking, or greater horse customisation and activities at Lon Lon Ranch, would be a natural fit into this incarnation of Zelda.
This remake, generally, is going to be an interesting sell for those who now associate Zelda with open world freedom, so Nintendo might attempt to straddle the two with a larger, more complex Hyrule Field layout. At the time that opening area seemed massive but by today’s standards it’s tiny, so it’s very hard to imagine a 1:1 recreation having the same impact.
Whatever Nintendo is planning for this remake, the company’s silence points to a ‘twist’ of some kind. The way they’re treating it brings to mind the marketing for Tears Of The Kingdom, where Nintendo didn’t reveal its core Ultrahand mechanic until two months before launch. A remake probably won’t have a secret up its sleeve on that scale, but there’s usually some method in Nintendo’s madness and a reason that they’ve chosen to be quite so secretive about a game that many fans already know like the back of their hand.
If Capcom’s work on Resident Evil is the gold standard for video game remakes today, where old and new is interwoven seamlessly, Nintendo has an opportunity to seize the throne with Ocarina Of Time. A by-the-numbers replication of the original might please a certain corner of fandom, but one of the most influential games of all time deserves a fresh spark in 2026, and if that means ripping up the rulebook entirely, then unleash the spinner into Jabu Jabu’s belly.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.