Nintendo has confirmed that it is remaking The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Switch 2, with the game due in 2026 to mark the series' 40th anniversary, Polygon reports. Nintendo describes the Nintendo 64 original as being reborn on the new hardware.
Little of the game has been shown. The reveal trailer is brief and opens with narration from the Great Deku Tree that closely mirrors the start of the 1998 version. Link, the only Kokiri child without a fairy, is shown sleeping restlessly; in the original that scene is a vision of Sheik and Zelda fleeing Hyrule Castle pursued by Ganondorf, and in the remake the Triforce is seen glowing on Link's left hand during the nightmare.
What footage there is points to a complete visual overhaul rather than a resolution bump, and one that departs sharply from the art direction of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
Ocarina of Time first released in 1998 on the Nintendo 64 as the follow-up to Link's Awakening. It moved the series from a 2D top-down perspective into fully 3D environments and introduced ideas that became standard in 3D action-adventure games, including the target-lock system known as Z-targeting and context-sensitive buttons.
The game has been reissued repeatedly since. Nintendo re-released it on GameCube in 2003, bundled with the harder Master Quest mode as a pre-order bonus for The Wind Waker, and a Nintendo 3DS remake with stereoscopic 3D effects and quality-of-life changes followed in 2011. Other entries in the series have had HD or DX visual updates, among them The Wind Waker, Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess, while the most radical reworking so far was the 2019 Switch version of Link's Awakening and its new graphical style.
The remake is not the only Ocarina of Time product on shelves. Nintendo and Lego released a buildable version of the game's final battle earlier this year, a 1,003-piece set featuring a large Ganondorf alongside minifigures of Link and Zelda, priced at $129.99.
Nintendo's plans for the franchise extend into 2027, when a live-action Zelda film from director Wes Ball reaches cinemas. The untitled film stars Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Link and Bo Bragason as Princess Zelda, and opens on April 30, 2027.
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