So, I lied about not covering this tonight. Just couldn't help myself!
You know those memes where someone would make a fanmade Unreal Engine Mario or Zelda demo and people would say "Nintendo, hire this man"?
Well, while I was watching the world premiere of gameplay for the highly anticipated remake of Ocarina of Time, the only thing I could think of was:
"They hired him."
And I mean that in the best way possible, as my jaw hasn't dropped the way it did when they showed the game for the first time in a LOOOOOONG time.
Case and point, the Ocarina of Time remake looks drop-dead gorgeous. Dare I say it may just be the most beautiful game Nintendo's ever made, and is no doubt the kind of true graphical showcase for the Switch 2 that I've been waiting for from Nintendo. It genuinely looks like one of those Unreal Engine fan demos, but it's official, and it looks incredible.
Y'know what else it reminds me of? That Zelda tech demo they showed off for the Wii U back in the day that didn't end up amounting to anything other than a flashy cinematic shown off for easy applause. We've reached a point with Nintendo's hardware where a Zelda game can actually look like that running in real time, and that's amazing.
Alright, enough gushing about the graphics, what exactly is this remake? Well, it's not the full-blown FFVII style reimagining I was hoping for, but it's also not a fully one-to-one remake, with new dialogue, voiced cutscenes, new actions, some reworked areas, such as Castle Town, and more, and it was rebuilt from the ground up. It's somewhere in the middle of being a one-to-one remake and a full reimagining, which is fine by me, especially with how good the game looks.
No seriously, I can't get over how good it looks. Like, look at this!
And the best part? We have a release date, and it's SOON.
The Ocarina of Time remake will launch exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2 on Thursday, November 5th, 2026. That's less than two months away for those of you keeping track. It's also just two weeks before Grand Theft Auto VI, making Nintendo one of the only companies bold enough to go toe to toe with Rockstar and GTA. And frankly? I'm not surprised one bit. Nintendo's always marched to the beat of their own drum. It does set up a clash between two of gaming's most titanic franchises. Heck, I could see it developing into a sorta 'Barbenheimer' or 'Doom Crossing: Eternal Horizons' (yes I came up with that just now) type situation, even though they come out to weeks apart, rather than on the same day. What would we call that... Grand Theft Ocarina? Grand Theft Zelda? Grand Theft Autocarina of Time? I kinda like that last one even if it's pretty dumb.
Either way, Ocarina of Time looks set to be a bombastic finale to what's been a quietly awesome year for the Big N, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it! There's a lot more I want to talk about that I'll go into in a more in-depth impressions post in the coming days, especially should we see more of the game at tomorrow's Treehouse livestream.
It's available now for pre-order, and will run you only $59.99 digitally, and $69.99 physically.
...OH YEAH!
I almost forgot that the first print of the physical edition will have textured foil cover art, which is an interesting contrast to that other massive game coming out two weeks later. PlayStation is killing physical games, GTA VI is asking up to $100 for a plastic case with a slip of paper inside, and meanwhile, Nintendo's going the extra mile with really cool commemorative cover art for a game that will be contained fully on a piece of physical media. That feels somewhat like a statement of intent, even though I doubt it's intended as such.
