Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake arrived on Switch 2 on November 5, 2026. Its developers describe a project built around selective change: update controls, presentation and audio, but retain the original adventure’s structure and the sense of finding your way through Hyrule.
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The Water Temple was “overdue homework”
Eiji Aonuma, who worked on the original game’s dungeons, described revisiting the Water Temple as overdue homework. The remake aims to ease some of the dungeon’s navigation and item-switching friction without discarding the place itself.
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Coverage of Aonuma’s comments also describes the remake’s Water Temple as his best version yet, pointing to a more convenient Iron Boots control and improved camera handling.
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13 The reporting available here does not establish the precise function of every environmental change, including the specific lattice-wall details.
New controls, familiar exploration
Link can now jump on command, replacing the original’s automatic jumping at ledges. Aonuma said removing that restriction made exploration more exciting, but also meant the team had to account for more possible player behavior when adjusting environments.
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Nintendo also tested adding fast-travel points, then removed them. The decision reflects a concern that shortcuts could bypass moments of discovery in the original game’s world.
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41 The remake’s approach is therefore not simply to make every journey faster: some friction was retained because it supports the experience the developers wanted to preserve.
A younger team revisited a landmark
Nintendo’s four-part Ask the Developer series covered the remake’s origins, development approach, adaptation for modern players and world design.
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Aonuma said one aim was to help developers who had not worked on the original understand its design and the lessons behind it. He had worked on the 1998 game as a dungeon designer and game planner.
38 The remake’s producers include Aonuma and Hidemaro Fujibayashi, known for directing Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
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Nintendo’s interview materials also describe Fujibayashi’s role in proposing the remake’s core development approach and overseeing the project.
35 Reporting identifies Nintendo’s EPD Production Group No. 3 as the team behind the remake.
37 The available sources do not provide enough detail to verify specific Monolith Soft contributions or to compare its role directly with Grezzo’s.
More music, and a familiar voice
The remake has more than 150 pieces of background music, including newly composed music for added cutscenes, according to Nintendo’s developer interview.
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41 Interview coverage also describes the score as recorded with a live orchestra, while an interview with the producers notes 5.1-channel surround sound.
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Nintendo’s music lead Masato Ohashi discussed voice casting in the developer interviews. Reporting says the studio held blind auditions and later recognized that it had cast an actor who had voiced a character in the original game. The actor was identified as Kaori Mizuhashi, who voiced Navi in the original Japanese version.
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The remake also lets players hum into the Switch 2 microphone and have Link play the melody on his ocarina.
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The remake’s guiding idea
The changes described by the developers share a common thread: modern controls and clearer interactions are welcome, but not if they flatten the original’s exploration. The Water Temple gets usability improvements; Link gets direct jumping; extra warps were tested and cut. That mix of updates and restraint is the clearest picture the interviews offer of Nintendo’s approach to remaking Ocarina of Time.
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