Remaking a game means breaking it apart. The salvage is polished, sharp edges sifted out, and all is reassembled in a new engine. In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 remake, this process has been followed with watchmaker precision. Walking through Kokiri Forest, Link’s familiar stomping grounds, I’m reminded of optical illusions that show two different pictures at once. Everything – yet remarkably little – has changed.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake breaks with the Nintendo 64’s sharp, jagged art style but keeps its broad-stroke palette. The result is a softer Hyrule, with warmth that extends to its denizens. Link’s redesign is far better in action than in its controversial reveal – with chubby cheeks and wide eyes, he looks the part for a kid being thrown into his first adventure. Kokiri Forest is brighter and feels bigger, but everything is in its right place – muscle memory guides me to Link’s sword, and the blue rupee I put towards buying a shield is where it’s always been.

But even the familiar (and it is – I spent my childhood in Hyrule) is remarkably fresh. The locked camera has been done away with, and you can now move the camera freely. That’s par for the course in modern Zelda, but for anyone returning to Ocarina of Time, it’s like taking a deeper breath. Later, in Castle Town, I run down newly-added backstreets and ogle at them from all angles. The town is far livelier – less dioramic than on N64, and more in line with the likes of Wind Waker’s bustling Windfall Island. The remake is an exercise in small nudges – beneath the glossy makeover, it’s exceptionally faithful to the source material that paved the way for 3D Zelda.

Return to Hyrule

My hands-on preview is broken into three chunks. The first chunk starts from the beginning, when Link is roused from bed for an audience with the ancient Deku Tree, and runs up to halfway through the Deku Tree dungeon. Some of Kokiri Forest’s haziness is gone, but it still feels like a place out of time. In the Deku Tree, Ocarina of Time’s movement changes shine. Being able to freely line up Link for platforming is a godsend, and he can jump – the boy can jump! – on command, meaning you no longer have to run full-pelt at a ledge to see if your intended angle is lined up correctly.

Similarly, combat is less stiff but still relatively simple. Whether you’re fighting a carnivorous Deku Baba plant or sword-toting Stalfos, simply lock onto your target, wait for it to overextend, and hack it to pieces. UI changes make it easier to switch items on the fly, too, meaning I actually use Deku Nuts to stun baddies.

Combat is straightforward – be it a carnivorous Deku Baba plant or sword-toting Stalfos, simply lock onto a target, wait for it to overextend, and hack it to pieces. UI changes make it easier to switch between items, meaning I actually use Deku Nuts to stun baddies. When I find the Slingshot in a chest, I’m surprised by how smooth its gyro controls are – for the first time in a game I use them willingly, gliding the Switch 2 controller around to pelt Skulltulas with seeds.

The second chunk of my preview skips ahead to Hyrule Field, which is titled over a sweeping shot (as Breath of the Wild introduces locations – right down to the font). Like Kokiri Village, everything in Hyrule Field is where I remember it. But ruined buildings now dot the field, and although I don’t have time to investigate, Hyrule’s countryside certainly feels bigger.

So does Castle Town, which hides one egregious cut (you can no longer run up the drawbridge chains to grab a hidden rupee) but makes up for it with unmatched liveliness. Where the settlement originally felt like a single bustling screen, it’s now fleshed out properly in 3D. New and old characters go about their business, including a man who claims his beard lets him sense where other men with facial hair are at any moment – Triforce of Power, eat your heart out.

As a Castle Town regular, I notice more has been done to nudge players in the right direction. Besides the bearded man who helps me locate mustachioed rancher Talon, other folk point me towards Hyrule Castle, where Link is due an appointment with Princess Zelda. That’s off-limits for this preview, so instead I bum around Castle Town – detouring to smash a room full of pots before playing a few rounds of the shooting gallery minigame, which now ramps up in difficulty rather than throwing you in at the deep end.

Of what I’ve seen, Castle Town has changed the most. But those changes are additive and cushioned around the familiar, bringing Ocarina of Time’s liveliness to the parity of later 3D Zelda games (Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword). Having played Ocarina of Time to death for the last 20 years, I’m thrilled at how fresh everything feels – this remake’s differences are its strengths.

Finally, I’m fast-forwarded to the Forest Temple to play through it in full. Gone are Link’s chubby cheeks, as this dungeon is the first one you tackle after a seven-year timeskip into adulthood. Adult Link has a few new tools, including a hookshot that wobbles delightfully when fired and (after some dungeon-crawling) a Hero’s Bow that continues to endear me to gyro controls.

Here, any mechanical changes are subtle but the remake’s lighting is outstanding. Dark wooden corridors seem to drink light, but pale sunlight still gathers in courtyards and stained glass windows; so detailed that it makes the original look stark in comparison.

As in Kokiri Forest, I’m carried through the Forest Temple on muscle memory, tackling light puzzles and minibosses that introduce the step-up in difficulty that adulthood poses (in game, of course).

Familiar puzzles are still satisfying to solve – I’m envious of anyone coming into this remake after only playing Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, as without spoiling anything there are some fiendish puzzles waiting in the Forest Temple and beyond.

In the final room, Phantom Ganon attacks. The Forest Temple’s boss is still deliciously dramatic, fighting first as a spectral horseman in larger-than-life paintings, then launching crackling balls at Link. It was (and still is) a very cool fight and Nintendo clearly agreed, as Phantom Ganon was made a recurring character. I take him down and leave the forest temple in 45 minutes – devastatingly, just 43 minutes short of breaking the world record.

I leave my Ocarina of Time preview excited to see the rest of Hyrule in this light. Changes have been made sparingly but with confidence, creating an identity that can co-exist with the spiky original. In putting Ocarina of Time back together, Nintendo focuses not on the dated, but the timeless.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake is out for Nintendo Switch 2 from November 5, 2026. You can pre-order the Ocarina of Time Remake now.

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