The Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake Is an Event Even if You’re Not Playing It

Published Nov 14, 2026, 12:00 PM EST Oli Welsh has been covering the business and culture of video games for two decades. He started out writing for Edge and other publications (specializing in MMOs and Blizzard, as cover for his World of Warcraft playtime) before joining Eurogamer, where he worked for 14 years as reviews editor, deputy editor, and editor-in-chief; Eurogamer won many Games Media Awards during his tenure. At Polygon, he writes about film and TV as well as games, and provides news, analysis, and criticism on the entertainment we love and the industries that make it, all from his home in London. He loves role-playing, racing, puzzles, tactics, exploration, storytelling, Nintendo, mysteries, spies, fantasy, reality, cars, and classic cinema. He wanted to be a movie critic when he grew up, and now he’s definitely grown up, and occasionally is one. He considers this a win. Watching people's personal responses to this classic is beautiful Image: Nintendo via Polygon Switchboard is Polygon's weekly newsletter for all things Nintendo, sent on Thursdays and published on the site on Saturdays. You can subscribe here. As I mentioned last week, I'm not playing the Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time yet. I'm familiar enough with the game not to be too wary of spoilers, though, so I've been reading around it and watching the responses flood my feeds. It's been a beautiful and uplifting experience. Even from this distance, it's clearly the gaming event of the year (until next week, anyway). Everyone's enjoying themselves. The care and joy Nintendo's Zelda team poured into this remake is infectious, and the mood is celebratory. No tedious discourse has penetrated my feeds, and everyone's initial misgivings about the art style do not seem to have survived first contact with the game itself. Wild new caricatures of familiar characters delight me as I scroll past them. What's even more delightful is to see how directly and profoundly Ocarina of Time still connects with people, whether they're revisiting it, experiencing it for the first time, or just being reminded of it because it's in the aether. Polygon's Corey Plante wrote a deeply touching story about his memories playing Ocarina with his grandmother this week; at the other end of the scale, Jen Glennon shared her experience of playing the game for the first time as only a recent Zelda convert. It turns out the familiar, emotive connection everyone is feeling with the remake isn't just nostalgia. "It shouldn't be possible to feel nostalgic for a memory that isn't yours," Jen wrote. In Zelda, "you know exactly where you are, even if you've technically never been there before." Jen points out that this feeling of knowing the game even if it's new to you stems from the elemental, fairytale simplicity of the storytelling in Zelda games. I'd add that Zelda games share a deep humanity, too, more so than most Nintendo games, which tend to be quite abstract. In Zelda, this isn't expressed through strong emotions and high drama so much as it is through humor, caricature, pathos, and telling details. And no Zelda game is more poignant, funny, or scary than Ocarina of Time — not even the complex clockwork soap opera of its sequel, Majora's Mask. One thing that brought me up short this week was the revelation — by no means new, but new to me, and many others — that Ocarina of Time contains a sly reference to Louisa May Alcott's classic novel Little Women. This seems completely out of character for Nintendo, whose worlds tend to be complete in and of themselves, and to appear hermetically sealed off from the rest of culture. But maybe it's not out of character for Ocarina of Time, a game with a time-travel plot that puts the worlds of children and adults in conversation with one another. Small wonder that it made Corey think about his grandmother, and his grandmother think about her child. Maybe the Nintendo developer or translator that slipped the Little Women reference in was instinctively reminded of another classic work of art about childhood. Because that's what Ocarina of Time is. eShop game of the week: Sword of the Sea It was easy to miss, but a few weeks ago, the Switch 2 was blessed with a port of this 2025 indie gem from Abzû developer Giant Squid. The studio was founded by Journey art director Matt Nava, and you can certainly see its influence on this similarly sandy, wordless, and meditative (if also more conventionally exciting) game about surfing around on a sword in a dying world. Nintendo Classics game of the week: The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons Once upon a time, Shigeru Miyamoto was Mr. Zelda and Eiji Aonuma was his heir apparent. The torch was passed, and now Aonuma is clearly lining up a successor of his own: Hidemaro Fujibayashi, director of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, who has now ascended to a producer credit on Ocarina of Time. In anticipation of Fujibayashi's future as the king of Zelda games, travel back to the start of his journey with the series: this excellent Game Boy Color diptych, featuring some of the best puzzles in Zelda history. Nintendo Music track of the week: "Today's Rescue Results" from Pikmin 4 In honor of the release of the Switch 2 Edition of the wonderful Pikmin 4, peace out to this timeless, warbling space lullaby that has accompanied the end-of-day results screen of every Pikmin game. I can't hear it without feeling a sense of completion. This week's most interesting releases Metaphor ReFantazio Nov. 12 Switch 2 Port of the acclaimed Atlus RPG about politics in a surreal fantasy realm Pikmin 4: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Dandori Academy Nov. 12 Switch 2 Nintendo's glorious garden strategy sequel gets Switch 2 edition with new challenge mode Sonic Pico Park Nov. 12 Switch, Switch 2 Co-op puzzle game with a Sonic makeover Barbie Rewind Nov. 12 Switch, Switch 2 Compilation of classic Barbie games tied together by a new customizable Dreamhouse Spirit Crossing Nov. 16 Switch, Switch 2 Cozy MMO from Spry Fox, the maker of Cozy Grove