A ‘Zelda Ocarina of Time’ remake is officially coming to Nintendo Switch 2, revealed as the closing surprise of the Nintendo Direct broadcast on Tuesday, 9 June 2026.
The Nintendo 64 classic, widely regarded as one of the greatest games ever made, will be rebuilt exclusively for the new console, with a launch pencilled in for later in 2026, as reported by Game Informer.
What the Zelda Ocarina of Time remake showed
Nintendo kept the reveal deliberately thin. The teaser ran barely a minute, skipped gameplay entirely, and instead offered a cinematic first look at a rebuilt Link model rendered in modern fidelity.
No release window narrower than 2026 was given, and no price was confirmed on the night.
The reveal also confirmed long-running leaks that had pointed to an Ocarina remake for months, with dataminers and insiders calling it well ahead of the broadcast.
Nintendo’s decision to hold it as the show’s final beat suggests the company knows exactly how much weight the title carries.
Even so, the announcement detonated across gaming circles. Ocarina of Time first launched in 1998 and has topped countless greatest-games lists in the decades since, so a ground-up remake on current hardware is the kind of fan-service Nintendo rarely greenlights.
Why Switch 2 is the right home for the remake
The choice of Switch 2 as an exclusive matters. The newer console packs significantly more graphical muscle than the original Switch, giving Nintendo the headroom to overhaul Hyrule’s lighting, textures and draw distance while preserving the layout fans memorised a generation ago.
Questions remain over how far Nintendo will go. Purists will want the original’s structure and music left intact, while newer players may hope for quality-of-life tweaks to the dungeon and inventory systems that have aged since the Nintendo 64 era.
It also anchors a stacked Switch 2 release slate. The same Direct confirmed Star Fox arriving on 25 June 2026 and teased fresh entries across Nintendo’s marquee franchises, positioning the remake as a tentpole for the console’s crucial first year.
The move slots into a wider industry habit of mining beloved back catalogues, with rivals reviving their own classics on modern hardware.
Nintendo has leaned on the tactic before, and few of its properties carry the nostalgic pull of Ocarina of Time.
For now, fans are left to pore over a single teaser until Nintendo offers a firm date, gameplay footage and pricing, most likely at a later showcase down the line.
What is certain is that one of gaming’s most beloved adventures is being rebuilt from the ground up for a new generation of players.
