Ocarina Of Time Remake Was Originally Going To Include "Warp Points"

Nintendo Added Fast Travel To The Ocarina Of Time Remake, Then Removed It Published Nov 3, 2026, 8:35 AM EST Josh Coulson is an editor at TheGamer covering breaking news on everything from colorful platformers to the latest Lego sets. Primarily a news writer since 2018, Josh has covered just about every major game from the past decade. Now an editor, their focus has shifted to being the leading affiliate expert at the site, building relationships between TheGamer and global brands including Mattel, Funko, and The Pokemon Company. Sign in to your TheGamer account You can tell The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is right around the corner because Nintendo is finally ready to tell us some behind-the-scenes stuff about its development. That includes the reveal that the remake was going to introduce “warp points” to its version of Hyrule, but ultimately decided that wouldn’t really fit the Ocarina framework. Adding Fast Travel To Ocarina Of Time Nintendo That’s technically not accurate. Nintendo didn’t just consider adding warp points to the Ocarina remake; it actually added them. Long-time Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma confirmed as much in a new installment of Nintendo’s Ask The Developer series. “I asked the team to add warp points that didn’t exist in the original game, giving players access to shortcuts,” Aonuma revealed, likening them to the fast travel points you can unlock in Breath of the Wild by discovering shrines. However, after adding a fast travel system to Ocarina, it quickly became evident that adding that particular quality-of-life feature didn’t really make much sense. “When we actually tried playing the game with those warp points, we realized that we were missing out on the moments of discovery that came from stopping along the way and wondering, 'Wait, what’s this?'," Aonuma continued. “So even though I was the one who proposed adding warp points, they just weren't working for me in the end, so I got the team to take them all back out again.” Upon hearing that the Ocarina of Time was being remade, there were some fans of the original game who wondered whether the new version would simply be the original game with BOTW’s visuals and mechanics applied. There are certainly elements of that. The inventory system, for example, has been lifted out of BOTW and placed into Ocarina of Time for its remake. The adoption of that feature makes sense and is a vast improvement on how inventory and item selection worked in the original Ocarina of Time on N64. Adding a BOTW-style fast travel system, as Aonuma says, doesn’t make much sense for the type of game Ocarina of Time is, not even its remake. Why Ocarina Of Time Doesn't Need Warp Points Breath of the Wild reimagines Hyrule like never before. It takes place in a huge open world designed for exploration, giving you the freedom to travel wherever you like, whenever you like. There are times when you need to get from one side of the map to the other. Without those warp points, that would require trekking for long periods of time through what are largely huge open and empty spaces. Ocarina doesn’t share those traits with BOTW. Its version of Hyrule is a lot more contained, and its story far more linear. Not only will it not take you long to travel from one place to another on foot, or on the back of Epona, but there won’t often be times when you need to as you progress through its linear story. Also, as Aonuma highlights, and the leading reason why Ocarina’s warp points were scrapped, its far more compact world means there are discoveries to be made almost everywhere. Things you will likely miss if you warp somewhere rather than traveling there on foot and seeing everything between the two locations. Systems Released November 5, 2026 ESRB Everyone 10+ / Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence Developer(s) Nintendo Publisher(s) Nintendo Genre(s) RPG, Action, Adventure