The remake of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time has got its first trailer, and it looks amazing, with an almost 1:1 recreation of the original using modern graphics.
Most things Nintendo does are hard to explain but why they’ve been so secretive about Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, considering it’s a remake of a 28-year-old N64 game, is a mystery. They pulled the curtain back on Tuesday afternoon though, with a very revealing trailer and a substantial amount of raw gameplay.
They also confirmed that, as leaked earlier, the game will be priced at a surprisingly generous £49.99 (digitally at least, there’s no price for the physical version yet). They also revealed the previously leaked special edition Switch 2 and a host of other merchandise. Importantly, they announced the release date as November 5, which is exactly two weeks before GTA 6.
As far as we could judge from what was shown, the game is more or less a 1:1 remake of the original. The graphics are vastly improved, as you’d expect, but while there doesn’t seem to be much change to the level layout, there are major changes to the gameplay… including the ability to jump.
In the N64 original, you jumped automatically whenever you reached the edge of a surface, which worked very well and was specifically implemented so people didn’t treat the game like a 3D platformer. We can’t help thinking that’s still a useful distinction to make but while we’re sure Nintendo agonised over the decision they’ve opted to go with a standard, manual jump button.
You can also move the camera at any time, which you couldn’t do in the original, but that seems less controversial, especially as you can clearly see Nintendo has tried to keep the look and feel of the groundbreaking Z-targeting system, in terms of the on-screen reticules.
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Other aspects have been retained specifically to retain the look and feel of the original, such as loading screens that it was implied aren’t entirely necessary. Instead, the biggest change we noticed was to Castle Town, which in the original was primarily portrayed via Resident Evil style fixed camera views.
Here it’s a normal open world hub, but it does look extremely good and much more like a bustling town. It’s also the best place to see how the character designs still retain elements of the original art style. While things look close to photorealistic with Link back in Kokiri Forest, you can see in Castle Town that some characters are quite stylised in their appearance.
It’s likely some areas will be changed more than others, but the trailer showed a lot of varied locations, and they all looked pretty much the same, in terms of layout.
One significant difference, though, is that there will be voice-acting in the game, although only during cut scenes. It’s ultra cheesy, with thick American accents, but it does seem as if it might suit the tone of the Young Link sections at least.
There’ll also be a lot more written dialogue than there was originally, with Navi the fairy seeming to have a lot more to say for herself, via constantly updating speech bubbles.
Series producer Eiji Aonuma took to the controls for the live demo, which started in Kokiri Forest and from there into the first dungeon, inside the Great Deku Tree. There’s a question as to whether Nintendo will simplify the dungeons, especially the infamous Water Temple, but there was no way to tell that from what is essentially the game’s tutorial.
What was shown is a new hint system called the Threads of Time, which tracks your progress and gives hints as to your next objective. The game will also use the Zelda Notes phone app first introduced for the Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom Switch 2 Editions, which tracks your progress, offers hints, and has things like a quiz and the ability to take screenshots automatically.
A lot of time was spent on different ways to simulate the titular ocarina (a kind of flute, if you didn’t know) with two varieties of physical one to buy and the ability to hum a tune into the Switch 2 microphone and have it register that way. Zelda Notes will also let you compose longer tunes with a touchscreen ocarina.
Aonuma’s demo only involved Young Link but you can see Adult Link, and Epona, throughout the trailer, which spoils quite a bit of the game’s most famous moments, if you want to go in completely fresh.
We’re not sure you could ask anything more from a remake of Ocarina Of Time but we’ll see over the next few days exactly how fans take to it.
The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time will be released for Nintendo Switch 2 on November 5, 2026.
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