Nintendo reheats 'Ocarina of Time' for Switch 2 instead of a new Zelda game
Nintendo announced a full Ocarina of Time remake at the June 9 Direct, one month after revealing a Star Fox 64 remake. The Switch 2 is getting reheats instead of new IP.
Nintendo just announced a Switch 2 game that came out in 1998.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake was revealed during the June 9, 2026 Nintendo Direct with a brief teaser featuring a tapestry depiction of Hyrule and a sleeping Young Link with a glowing Triforce on his hand. The game is described in Nintendo’s official announcement as “reborn exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2“ for a 2026 release.
This is one month after Nintendo announced a full remake of Star Fox 64, releasing June 25, 2026 on Switch 2.
Two of Nintendo’s biggest 2026 software announcements are both catalog reheats from the same Nintendo 64 era. The pattern matters because Nintendo is heading into the Switch 2’s first proper holiday season with a software lineup that institutional investors have publicly called “poor.”
What Nintendo actually showed
The reveal teaser ran for just over a minute. No gameplay footage. Tapestry-style art depicting the Great Deku Tree. Young Link sleeping in his Kokiri Forest treehouse as the Triforce glows on his hand. End scene.
The release window is late 2026 with no specific date. Insider NateTheHate, who first leaked the project in March 2026, has described the Ocarina remake as a “full-blown remake, not a remaster.” Multiple insiders have also claimed the project uses the Breath of the Wild engine, though Nintendo has not confirmed this publicly.
The 1998 original holds a 99 Metacritic score, the highest rating in the site’s database. Ocarina of Time already received one official remaster on the Nintendo 3DS in 2011.
This will be the second remake of the same game.
The Star Fox precedent
The Star Fox announcement on May 7, 2026 was structurally similar. A full remake of Star Fox 64 (the 1997 N64 game, itself already remade once on 3DS in 2011), priced at $50 digital and $60 physical. Free demo available on the Nintendo eShop today. Release date June 25, 2026.
Both projects were leaked by NateTheHate. Both arrived as official announcements roughly 30 days after the original leaks. Both are Switch 2 exclusives. Both are catalog rebuilds rather than new IP.
NateTheHate has also said publicly that no new 3D Mario game will arrive until 2027.
The pattern: Nintendo is shipping Switch 2 software faster by remaking older games than by developing new ones. The reheats arrive in time for the 2026 holiday window. The new IP slides to 2027 or later.
Christmas 2025 was rough
The reason the reheat strategy matters is what happened to the Switch 2’s first Christmas.
The Game Business reported in January 2026 that US Switch 2 holiday sales were down 35 percent year-over-year compared to the original Switch’s first holiday in 2017. UK sales were down 16 percent over the same period. 2025 marked the worst November for hardware sales in the US since 1995.
Bloomberg reported on March 24, 2026 that Nintendo cut Switch 2 production by 33 percent for the quarter, dropping the planned 6 million units to 4 million. The cut was scheduled to continue into April.
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa acknowledged the situation directly to shareholders, saying that Switch 2 sales were “slightly weaker than our expectations“ in Western markets, while Japan exceeded expectations.
The Switch 2 had the most successful console launch in history. It sold 3.5 million units in its first four days and 10 million in four months. The second wave was not supposed to look like this.
Investors are not happy
The Bloomberg report quoted Amir Anvarzadeh, strategist at Asymmetric Advisors, in unusually blunt terms.
Anvarzadeh’s full quote: “This hardware shortfall in its first year, during its big holiday season, is awful news. Clearly the software lineup has been poor, at least until most recently with Pokémon showing some hope.“
He also warned of incoming competition: “Grand Theft Auto VI in November 2026“ will pull discretionary gaming dollars away from Nintendo’s audience at exactly the moment Nintendo needs them.
A senior Nintendo employee speaking to The Game Business put it more diplomatically: the holiday slowdown was caused by “the absence of a major Western game“ in the Switch 2’s first holiday lineup. Mario Kart World was the launch bundle. Donkey Kong Bananza arrived in fall 2025. Pokemon Legends: Z-A and Pokopia carried late 2025. But no mainline 3D Mario, no mainline Zelda, no Metroid Prime 4.
The hardware was there. The system sellers were not.
The fan reaction is mixed at best
The Ocarina announcement landed with the gaming press calling it “finally“ and the gaming community calling it something more complicated.
Creative Bloq ran a piece titled “Switch 2 Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake has some fans regretting what they wished for.“ Destructoid ran “Zelda fans are making fun of the Ocarina of Time remake announcement.“
The specific complaints fall into a few buckets.
The Young Link character model in the teaser resembles the kind of high-fidelity hyperrealistic Unreal Engine fan remakes that have been circulating on YouTube for years. The “Nintendo, hire this man“ meme refers to viewers responding to those fan remakes by asking Nintendo to hire the creators. Pinguis (@Pinguis54) posted on X: “2016: Nintendo Hire This Man / 2026: Nintendo Hired This Man.“
Other fans are worried about an “Ocarina of the Wild“ approach, where the Breath of the Wild engine produces a remake that loses the original’s structure in favor of open-world traversal.
The deeper complaint is more pointed. A significant portion of the Zelda fanbase wanted a new Zelda game, not a remake. Tears of the Kingdom released in 2023. Nintendo’s mainline Zelda studio Monolith Soft has been quiet since. The Ocarina remake suggests Monolith is either on a new project that needs more time, or the studio is being kept busy on the remake itself rather than a new mainline entry.
The Zelda 40th anniversary was earlier in 2026. The Legend of Zelda live-action film arrives May 2027. The remake fits the broader nostalgic anniversary celebration. It does not fit the “next new Zelda” expectation that many fans were running with.
Why Nintendo is reheating now
The strategic reason for two catalog reheats in a five-week window comes down to schedule and risk.
Remakes are faster to produce than original games. The story exists. The level layouts exist. The gameplay loops are known. The audience awareness is already there. A team rebuilding Star Fox 64 in modern engine technology does not have to invent anything from scratch. The same applies to an Ocarina of Time rebuild using the Breath of the Wild engine.
Remakes also carry less risk. A new Zelda game has to compete with itself (against Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, both 90-plus Metacritic releases). A new Star Fox game has to either reinvent the franchise or recapture lightning the series has been chasing for 20 years. Reheats avoid both risks by leveraging audience nostalgia for proven properties.
For Nintendo heading into Christmas 2026 with a 35 percent year-over-year holiday sales deficit and analysts publicly criticizing the software lineup, the reheat strategy is the safer path to a holiday hit. A new mainline Zelda would be more exciting. An Ocarina remake will likely sell more units faster.
The cost is that the Switch 2 enters its second holiday season as “the console where you replay games from 1997 and 1998“ rather than “the console where you play the new ones.”
The reheats might be enough to fix Christmas 2026. They will not fix the deeper question of whether Nintendo’s first-party studios can ship original AAA software at the pace the Switch 2 needs.
That question gets answered in 2027. Or 2028. Whenever the next mainline Mario and Zelda actually arrive.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Nintendo official announcement / VGC / Game Informer / Nintendo Everything / Dexerto (June 9, 2026), primary source for the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Switch 2 remake reveal including the “reborn exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2” framing, the 2026 release window, and the teaser trailer specifics
NateTheHate insider podcast (March 2026 leak), primary source for the Ocarina remake being a “full-blown remake, not a remaster” and the Breath of the Wild engine rumor
Game Rant / Nintendo Everything (May 7, 2026), Star Fox Switch 2 announcement including the June 25, 2026 release date, the $50 digital / $60 physical pricing, the free eShop demo, and the “cinematic take” framing
Bloomberg (March 24, 2026), Nintendo Switch 2 production cut from 6 million to 4 million units per quarter and Amir Anvarzadeh of Asymmetric Advisors quotes including “This hardware shortfall in its first year, during its big holiday season, is awful news” and “Clearly the software lineup has been poor, at least until most recently with Pokémon showing some hope”
The Game Business / Chris Dring (January 2026), Switch 2 holiday sales down 35 percent year-over-year in the US, down 16 percent in the UK, and the senior Nintendo employee quote attributing the slowdown to “the absence of a major Western game”
Kotaku / TechRadar / Nintendo Life / Notebookcheck (March 2026), comprehensive coverage of Nintendo’s 33 percent production cut, Furukawa’s “slightly weaker than expectations” admission for Western markets, and the broader Switch 2 first-year hardware analysis
Creative Bloq (June 9, 2026), “Switch 2 Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake has some fans regretting what they wished for” coverage including the Unreal Engine fan remake aesthetic comparisons
Destructoid (June 9, 2026), “Zelda fans are making fun of the Ocarina of Time remake announcement” coverage including the Pinguis (@Pinguis54) “2016: Nintendo Hire This Man / 2026: Nintendo Hired This Man” tweet
CBR (June 9, 2026), Ocarina of Time Switch 2 reveal analysis including the cinematic quality and “movie teaser” presentation framing
Game Informer / Charles Harte (June 9, 2026), the Ocarina remake confirmation including the 1998 N64 original context and the prior re-release history