Nintendo showed roughly 20 minutes of footage from the Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in the Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct this morning. Producer Eiji Aonuma said this project is largely a faithful remake of the N64 classic, reborn on Switch 2 with modern controls and a strong focus on detail. But even though the remake appears to stick closely to the bones of its source material, there are plenty of minor additions and changes I noticed when scrubbing back through the footage for a couple of hours following the Direct.
Here are 40 changes I saw when comparing Ocarina of Time on Switch 2 to the N64 version, from things as large as the art style all the way to small menu changes and UI differences. This list mostly goes in chronological order, starting with the gameplay demonstration from Aonuma and ending with the new trailer that closed the presentation.
A brief warning: I talk in general terms about some items and locations from the original Ocarina of Time. So, if you want absolutely zero knowledge of these things before playing for yourself, stay away!
Obviously, the biggest difference in the remake is its visuals. Aonuma opened his gameplay demo with a look at Kokiri Forest, where the game begins. Everything is more detailed: there are paved stone paths, defined wooden staircases that used to be low-texture ramps, grass blowing in the wind, forest spirits gliding through the air, and modern sunlight seeping through the trees. It's definitely a brand new take on the first 3D Hyrule, especially compared to the 3DS version that essentially just spruced up the original visuals.
Link himself has seen a similarly significant overhaul. We saw lots of Child Link in the gameplay — with snippets of Adult Link showing up in the full trailer later on — and he looks a lot different. His woven green tunic has multiple layers now, with patterns sewn in and flourishes at the bottom. He wears a feather in his hair and has various beads throughout his outfit. I personally love how Link looks now. I think the uncanny art style of the blocky N64 originally shines through brilliantly in this interpretation. We see his mannerisms throughout the gameplay — like stretching when he's left idle for too long, or putting his hands on his hips when speaking to someone — and I think he perfectly embodies the spirit of the Hero of Time.
N64 Ocarina sets you off with a pretty small wallet that can only hold 99 rupees. That's pretty annoying, especially when you open a treasure chest that contains a high-value rupee that you aren't able to fit in your wallet, making it go to waste. On Switch 2, we see Link dive down and grab a blue rupee (worth five, of course) and add it to his wallet, which is shown to have a maximum capacity of 200. I'm sure we'll still upgrade our wallets through the Gold Skulltula questline, but this is a much better start!
On the left side of the new equipment screen, we see a grid of four empty slots (Link just doesn't have the matching items at the start of the game) that appear to be mapped to the top and bottom directional buttons on the left Joy-Con (or the D-pad on the Pro Controller). Later in the gameplay, we see that the Ocarina and Navi are each mapped to one of the left and right directional buttons, but the top and bottom are blank. It would appear that these are going to be shortcuts for equipment earned later in the adventure. I have to imagine this is the solution for swapping boots on the fly (more on that later), but I'm puzzled at what the other slots could be for, given that there are only two special sets of boots to find in the original. We'll have to wait and see.
As Aonuma pointed out, it feels silly to spend time discussing free camera movement in a 2026 game, but it's a huge addition to Ocarina of Time. He demonstrated spinning the camera fully around Link, giving us a look at the poor kid trying to lift rocks for the great Mido. Camera control alone will make the Ocarina remake feel like a significantly different game, especially in stealth sections and tricky platforming moments.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/40-changes-we-noticed-in-the-zelda-ocarina-of-time-remake-gameplay-footage
