Nintendo has blessed us with a stacked Nintendo Direct presentation dedicated entirely to celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda franchise, revealing a ton of updates on the Ocarina of Time remake, new special edition hardware, upcoming feature film as well as other fun 40th Anniversary tie-ins.
The one, big reveal that folks were looking forward to for this showcase, of course, is that Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, which releases on November 5, 2026 for the Switch 2. During the show, producer Eiji Aonuma guides fans through a first look at the game running in real time.
The footage begins where the game does, in Kokiri Forest as young Link, showing off some new mechanics such as full camera control, quick item switching, motion controls, manual jumping, roll-dash and more. There’s also now a cool Threads of Time menu that keeps track of your game progress and objectives, and fills in a gorgeous tapestry as you go, and you can hum or play a new official Ocarina replica (available on the Nintendo Store) to activate the in-game Ocarina!
After the short introduction we see Link enter the Great Deku Tree dungeon, accompanied by a very thorough explanation of how this classic game works. This is followed by a look at the enormous Hyrule Field, where that new roll-dash move comes in very handy, and a quick traipse through Castle Town – which looks incredibly detailed and even features fleshed-out new areas.
Despite the new controls, mechanics, lush visuals and expanded areas, this appears to be a remake adding a huge amount of new details while keeping somewhat faithful to the source material with familiar layouts, puzzle designs and even the loading screens between areas – apparently an intentional choice to keep the essence of the game intact.
You can see the full gameplay demonstration video right below:
And here’s the game’s new official trailer, showing off even more looks at later portions of the game:
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Born into the world of video games through SEGA, and in particular Sonic the Hedgehog, Kieron’s gaming tastes now consist of the latest, shiny AAA thing, an indie darling or two, and an embarrassing number of hours of Balatro.