Beloved The Legend of Zelda entry gets controversial HD-2D makeover ahead of Ocarina of Time remake

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake is just weeks away at this point, but what could be considered an affront to the series is here to spoil it.

Nintendo is no stranger to Legend of Zelda remakes, but no one expected the company to redo the highest-rated game in its repertoire. This understandably has fans guessing at what could be remade next, and some are even taking the matter into their own hands.

An HD-2D remake of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is currently in the works with Reddit user u/JoggingThruThe6.

The famed SNES game is regarded as one of the best games in the series, and an easy contender for the next Zelda game Nintendo could remake after Ocarina of Time.

Roughly two minutes of gameplay footage from the fan-made remake has been shared online and it’s actually rather impressive, even though there’s a catch.

The creator has admitted that AI was used to help bring the remake to life, though that’s not to say there hasn’t been plenty of human work put into the mod too. We do need to highlight it though, as everyone’s opinion on AI differs. We’re obviously dead against it, but we’ve seen far worse examples than u/JoggingThruThe6’s project out there…

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Speaking about the project, its creator said: “I've been working on this for the past few days. The video is just tossed together quickly to highlight some things. I've been primarily testing and playing on my AYN Thor (I've built an enhanced version of the dual screen UI)—but I wanted to record sound easily for some scenes and my Mac build chugged with the lighting in the intro... It's been a smooth 60 on my Thor.”

Some of the remake’s features include: a day and night cycle, dynamic weather, enhanced NPCs, remade UI and much, much more.

It’s impressive work if you can look past the AI interference, and while Nintendo would probably go down a different path if it were to remake A Link to the Past itself, we wouldn’t be opposed to it looking something like this.

Unfortunately, you can’t play this version of the game yourself as a public build isn’t available. There also doesn’t seem to be any plans to release one.

Should that change though, we might have found a successor to the Ocarina of Time Unreal Engine remake that made headlines before Nintendo announced the official remake.

Everything we know about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake

The Ocarina of Time remake will be a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. That’s a tad disappointing, but when you look at the gameplay, you can see why.

Now this next bit is mainly speculation as Nintendo hasn’t confirmed it. Preview impressions suggest the remake has been built using the same game engine as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, or at least a modified version of it.

Don’t worry, there’s no paraglider and you won’t be able to scale Death Mountain, but you will benefit from snappier controls, overhauled visuals and a jump button. That last addition is probably going to feel quite jarring for those who’ve played the original Death, but it’s a welcome inclusion nonetheless.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake launches on 5 November, and it’s not the only way Nintendo is celebrating the series’ 40th anniversary.

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