Nintendo finally showed off the Ocarina of Time remake in a Direct wholly dedicated to the series and its 40th anniversary. The graphical style is pushing its thumb on the Twilight Princess end of the scale with rich, detailed textures, evocative lighting, while seeming to maintain the fantastical character designs from 1998. It's a stunner to be sure and in the same vein as Nintendo's other big remake this year—Star Fox.

The reaction to the art direction and seeming lack of divergence beyond those aesthetics is much more down than I expected. Lots of complaints about the art direction, the 1:1 remake commitment, and the return of the Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom horizontal item selection system.1

There is also quite a bit we don't know about though. The presentation stuck to the basics and generalizations about the remake. We have no clue if, say, the Master Quest is there. What kind of expansions have they done similar to the new bit of Castle Town they showed? We won't know until Nintendo says more or until the game is out in two months.

Jason Schreier made a video explaining the basics of why developers love remakes. I'm always surprised at Schreier's simple and clean approach to explanation, as if his audience doesn't understand how and why games are made—but then I realize that they probably don't understand. As I've spent time over the last couple days thinking about this remake, I think it goes much deeper than fans wanting something "new," not Breath of the Wild-new, but rather "new-new."

As we all ought to know, time is a flat circle, and the Zelda series proves that in more ways than one.

Let's go back to 1998 when Ocarina of Time came out for the Nintendo 64. It was recognized and hailed as an industry defining experience. The series was transformed in its new 3D livery, while its fundamental formula was the same as A Link to the Past. After the success, Nintendo immediately began working on a sequel by combining established assets, developer tools, and a RAM expansion pak. But Nintendo accidentally added an extra ingredient—a dark, oppressive story and time mechanic. Thus, Majora's Mask was born! From there, after a little Space World MacGuffin, Nintendo introduced the world to Wind Waker, which sparked endless debates about "Cel-da." While Wind Waker is a part of the series' upper echelon, Nintendo responded to the outcry in 2004 when it revealed Twilight Princess at E3 and made at least one grown man cry.

Now let's go back to 2017 when Breath of the Wild came out for the Nintendo Wii U.2 It was recognized and hailed as an industry defining experience. The series was transformed in its new open-world design, while its fundamental formula was the same as The Legend of Zelda. After the success, Nintendo immediately began working on a sequel by combining established assets, developer tools, and a more powerful console than the Wii U.3 But Nintendo accidentally added an extra ingredient—a freeform construction mechanic from Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts! Thus, Tears of the Kingdom was born! From there, after a cutesy remake of Link's Awakening, Nintendo introduced the world to Echoes of Wisdom, which sparked endless debates about UI design. While Echoes of Wisdom was a fusion of classic dungeons and freeform puzzle solving, Nintendo is now responding to outcries over the last decade with the reveal of the Ocarina of Time remake and probably made at least one grown man cry.

Jokes aside, the flat circle of time wraps around again. Ocarina of Time has been released on the N64, GameCube, Wii and Wii U Virtual Console, 3DS, Nintendo Switch Online, and, now, Switch 2. There has not been a console without it, besides the Nintendo DS. There are even shades of the 3DS' launch year with remakes/remasters of both Star Fox 64 and Ocarina of Time for the handheld.4

The timing of this particular remake is laser-targeted on as well. Say you were seven years old when Ocarina came out in 1998. You are now 35 years old, maybe with your own seven-year-old to boot.

Say you were seven years old when Ocarina came out in 2011. You are now 22 years old.

Say you were seven years old when Breath of the Wild came out in 2017. You are now 16 years old.

Besides turning to dust with every sentence there, all of those ages are primed for a bold reimagining of one of the greatest games of all time in our nostalgia-charged consumerist world. There is also the entirely new generation of seven-year-old kids that are going to see The Legend of Zelda movie next spring and have Ocarina of Time be their first Zelda game. Brian Altano wrote about this very factor in June. I know I linked to it then, but it remains relevant.

"Imagine being a 10 year old who walks out of the Zelda movie, heads home, grabs their Nintendo Switch 2, and plays Ocarina of Time for the first time in their lives. It’s hard not to be envious of experiencing a moment like that. Also, consider this: it’s been almost three decades since the original game launched, and it seems pretty likely that a sizable number of people who played it back then now have children of their own. Hmm, if only there was a Zelda game about experiencing how the world changes from the perspective of a child and the perspective of an adult…"

Another complaint that rustled Cucco feathers was the structure of the gameplay demo. It focuses entirely on the opening areas of Kokiri Forest, the Great Deku Tree, Hyrule Field, and Castle Town. It's so simple, especially to anyone who knows those locations like the back of their hand.

But this line of criticism got me thinking about previous Zelda gameplay demos and reveals. I don't remember them being anything more than gameplay basics and early environments. Of course, memory is fickle, so I went back and watched the reveal demos for Twilight Princess at E3 2006 and Skyward Sword at E3 2010. I encourage you all to go watch those segments.

I hate to break it to you, but the demos are ostensive. You've got your basic controls, tiny new mechanics, and core principles explained. Both show off aiming a bow and arrow on the Wii for Reggie's sake! There is one element that is leagues different from the gameplay demonstration for the new remake.5

060509_Nintendo E3_TP Demo 100615_Nintendo E3_SS Demo

260908_Nintendo Direct_OoTR Demo

The entire industry has lost surprise, delight, and showmanship ever since Nintendo trailblazed the "direct" approach with manicured presentations. There's a loss of energy, the kind that crackles over the waves as we surf the web—imagine the loss of the energy of being in the room.

Both the E3 demos had failures, hitches, and bugs. Their charm prevailed under pressure and communicated that it was indeed a live demo. In 2026, there is zero chance the remake demo fails. It is framed exactly how Nintendo wants to present its game.

We do get glimpses of that live Nintendo charm. Eiji Aonuma playing a real ocarina to playing an ocarina in the game is the stand out example.

260908_Nintendo Direct_Ocarina

In all this waxing poetic about live presentations, I had an idea. I wanted to see if I could elicit the feeling of an E3 reveal. Could I take you back to a world where the game's leak didn't rob us of some joy and Nintendo revealed it with pizazz? I thought I just might be able to by taking the legendary Twilight Princess reveal and mashing parts of the Ocarina of Time remake trailer in its place.

I may be biased, but I think it hits.

There was a similar time in my life with another video game remake. Last time I wrote about Ocarina of Time, I closed the article out with my memory of witnessing the reveal of the Final Fantasy VII remake:

"Speaking of Final Fantasy VII remake, I remember sitting in a movie theater in that summer of 2015. I had never played Final Fantasy VII. I had no clue what was happening. But I remember the eruption at the reveal and the news that it was a remake. I don't recall leaks or rumors, but perhaps there were. All we got was a CG cutscene in a very Tetsuya Nomura way. There was no gameplay. No date. It didn't come out for another five years. The other parts are still coming out to this day."

Then I get to thinking about other remakes of timeless classics and the reaction to their existence. I don't remember backlash for Shadow of the Colossus or Demon's Souls or Metroid Prime Remastered. I do remember backlash for The Last of Us Part I, but that's the curse of greatness, right? It was before my time, but there doesn't seem to have been backlash to Resident Evil's remake (my beloved ReRe) as a GameCube exclusive! I certainly don't recall negative reactions to Resident Evil 2 or whatever release of Skyrim we are on now.

Friend of the blog, Tomas Franzese, wrote about how there is "no right way to make a remake" in his newsletter Remastered.

"There’s no one “correct” way to handle a remake, because each remake exists somewhere different on a spectrum with a slightly different interpretation of what being a remake means...

...Not every remake is going to be for you as a player, but it is going to be for someone. What matters most to me is that the developers have a clear vision of their wants for a remake, and execute upon that. I might not agree with every choice they make, but the game industry is better off when developers are bold enough to execute a remake exactly how they see fit."

Not everything is for you or me—that includes every entry in one of the most beloved gaming series ever conceived. They can be! Or they can be for the kid who first played the remake on 3DS. Or the kid going to the movie theater with his parents, who played the game series when they were a kids. Or the kid that opens a new Nintendo console on Christmas morning.

We are becoming old enough to realize that the hobby and industry we love is not chock-full of innovation at every release; where every game we touched offered something not just new, but unknown to us. Revolutions are few and far between. We are older and wiser, perhaps jaded—but wisdom is a gift that we can no longer trade for youth. Much like Link himself at the end of Ocarina of Time—there is no going back, not really. We may only march forward, but we have a choice in our posture. I miss the reveals, the pomp and circumstance of it all. I miss being surprised and delighted. I don't miss Ocarina of Time—I miss the way it made me feel. I think this remake is going to stir up those feelings and more this fall. For that, I am all aboard.

Footnotes

  1. As someone who just gave up on Echoes, the system could have felt much better with a PS3/PSP-style XMB. The XMB was the greatest of all time. How far we have fallen as a society. ↩

  2. And Switch! ↩

  3. Hard to imagine, I know. ↩

  4. I wonder if the new Arwing will be in the new Kokiri Forest? ↩

  5. It's not baby Bill Trinen either. ↩