Nintendo’s own Zelda team is behind The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake for Nintendo Switch 2. A new Ask the Developer feature from Nintendo puts longtime series producer Eiji Aonuma alongside members of Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development (EPD) Production Group No. 3, the group behind the mainline Zelda games, as GameSpot reports.
That answers a question fans have been asking since the remake was announced. Speculation had centered on Grezzo, which handled the 3DS remakes of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask plus the Switch remake of Link’s Awakening, and Monolith Soft, which has contributed to Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom. Neither studio is mentioned in the first two parts of the interview. GameSpot notes they could still be involved in a support role, and the full credits will tell the story at launch.
The interview also revealed a feature that almost made it in. Aonuma said he asked the team to add warp points inspired by Breath of the Wild, since many players of the original spent their time “doggedly rolling across Hyrule Field.” The team built them, played with them, and pulled them back out, per Eurogamer.
“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 said. “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.”
Aonuma added that some younger developers on the team may never have played the 1998 original, and that remaking it could “trigger new insights that they can carry forward into future development.” Art director Aya Shida said the team used phrases like “a puppet-show feel” and “the analog feel of practical effects films” early in production to shape the new look.
Parts 3 and 4 of the Ask the Developer feature are set to go live on November 3. As we covered when Nintendo released a 5-minute overview of the remake, the game is nearly here: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time launches on Nintendo Switch 2 on November 5.
