The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake will launch on Nintendo Switch 2 on November 5, 2026. For Nintendo, it's an opportunity to revisit a Nintendo 64 classic and give its newest console a heavy-hitting exclusive. For a terminally ill man named Blake, it's a fresh chance to finish Ocarina of Time decades after trying the original game.
On September 21, Blake – as we'll call him – posted on the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 Reddit communities. "I'm dying, and I plan to make the new OOT the first game I ever fully complete," he wrote. Both posts were met with huge support from the gaming community, including many people who offered to buy Ocarina of Time for Blake.
"All these strangers and people I've obviously never interacted with before sending me all these good wishes and offering to buy me the game, it was crazy," he tells me. "I'm very thankful for all the touching comments from everybody. It's little things like this that put a smile on my face and will be something I remember."
Blake explained that he has a motor neuron disease called ALS – amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease – which impacts muscle control. Per the ALS Association (which you can donate to here), people with ALS typically lose the ability to "walk, dress or write, speak or swallow, breathe on their own."
"While the average survival time after diagnosis is about three years, many people live longer," the ALS Assocation says. Blake says his father was also diagnosed with ALS and passed away six months after his diagnosis.
Blake says he was diagnosed with a rare form of ALS at age 38 and given 12 months to live. Almost five years later, thanks to medically transformative spinal injections, he says he's more than capable of talking to me over email, but, in his Reddit post, adds that "my time is winding down though now sadly, and I really do only have about a year left."
Blake's story is an important example of what games can mean to people and why games should be for everyone. Now a software architect and 3D printing nerd (handy for wheelchair parts, he says), Blake says he got into games in the late '80s through Apple computers, starting with Prince of Persia on the Apple II, before diving into consoles with an N64. Even back then, Blake says he focused more on competitive games like GoldenEye 007 and NFL Blitz. He only rented Ocarina of Time from Blockbuster to try it while his best friend "was raving about it."
هەفتانە هەرسکردنەکان، چیرۆکەکانی ئەو کۆمەڵگایانەی کە خۆشت دەوێن و زۆر شتی تر
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/the-legend-of-zelda/a-dying-mans-quest-to-finish-the-zelda-ocarina-of-time-remake-this-will-be-the-first-and-likely-only-video-game-i-actually-beat
