The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is officially official, with Nintendo confirming the project for a 2026 release exclusively on Switch 2.
The 1:38 reveal trailer didn’t show a whole lot – it was mostly vibes, really, with some lovely auditory flourishes calling back to that iconic score – but we did get a glimpse of Link, who’s apparently been pretty dramatically redesigned from his look in the original game, and of course, that means everyone’s freaking out.
In fairness to the Zelda fanbase, Ocarina of Time is one of the most beloved games of all time. Speaking specifically as a millennial who grew up with an N64 controller in my hand, the first 3D Link is one of the most formative characters of my youth and one of the big early drivers of my passion for gaming, and I know that’s the same for a lot of gamers in my age bracket.
That’s all to say, I get why people are protective of that little blue-eyed polygonal weirdo. He’s iconic. But early reactions to the character’s redesign, which we see little more than a single frame of in the reveal, are so dramatically opposed to each other that I can’t help but wonder if we all need to take a collective deep breath and wait until we see more.
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One very common criticism is that Link looks like he has an adult head but a child’s body, which, frankly, I’m just not seeing. He looks like HD young link to me, with a big-old head and unformed jawline indicating pre-pubescent boyhood. Other folks say he looks AI-generated (he’s not). And then there are plenty of people seeing a resemblance between Link’s redesign and the countless Unreal Engine fan remakes of Ocarina of Time that social media algorithms loved to pass off as official Nintendo projects for a few years there.
Other Zelda fans simply hate the new redesign without explicit reason, with one such critic going as far as to call it “the worst case scenario,” which I just find hilariously dramatic. Likewise, another reaction calls it “the ugliest redesign I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Not everyone’s bummed about the redesign, but there seem to be very few takes between unbridled disgust and full-blown embrace, with one such commenter calling the design “perfect,” and another writing in all caps, “LINK’S NEW DESIGN GIVES ME SO MUCH HOPE.” I’m exhausted.
I just think this is all a bit much. We saw 15 seconds of the new Link lying down on one side with his eyes closed in dim lighting. Let’s reserve judgment for better lighting, gameplay footage, and a full view of a character I have no doubt Nintendo would only work on with the utmost care. The remake is due out this year, so it won’t be long before we see more.
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