Nintendo's Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time launches tomorrow, November 5, according to Gamebonk's release tracker. In the final days before release, Nintendo has published developer interviews on the biggest changes, from Link's new jump button to a reworked Water Temple.
The remake arrives 28 years after the Nintendo 64 original. The Verge reports a far more realistic art style along with several modern additions: a dedicated jump button, sprinting, full voice acting, and a progress tracker called "Threads of Time." Nintendo is also selling a Switch 2 console and Pro Controller decorated with Triforce imagery to mark the launch.
Removing auto-jump forced wider changes
In a Nintendo blog post covered by VGC, longtime Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma said the original's automatic ledge jumping was a convenient way for designers to control where players could go. Letting players jump freely meant rethinking the environments around them. "If you remove that restriction and make it possible to jump anywhere, you need to anticipate all kinds of player behavior and make corresponding adjustments to the environment," Aonuma said. The team also had to account for Young Link and Adult Link jumping different distances.
The Water Temple, long notorious for its difficulty, has been adjusted too. Aonuma said the original's layout and frequent item swapping sent players into the menu repeatedly and left them disoriented. According to VGC, the new version improves visibility and makes switching items easier. Some quirks survive: the Jump Attack now takes two buttons, but players can switch it back to the original single-button input.
“None of us saw that coming.”Eiji Aonuma
A returning voice nobody planned for
Nintendo's latest Ask the Developer interview, reported by Kotaku, covers sound and music. Sound director Masato Ohashi said the team wrote new music for many of the new cutscenes, bringing the total to more than 150 background tracks. Some combine a live orchestra with sounds recreated from the original N64 sound source. Ocarina songs use recordings of a real ocarina, and the game supports 5.1-channel surround sound.
Director HokWai Ng said every role was cast through blind auditions, prioritising voices that matched the feel of the original. Aonuma said actors' names were hidden during the Japanese auditions, and one selected performer turned out to have voiced the same character in the N64 version. "None of us saw that coming," he said. Nintendo has not named the actor. Fans have speculated it is Kaori Mizuhashi, the original Japanese voice of Navi, while the English version uses a new Navi voice, Kotaku notes.
