Tomorrow, we're due to finally find out what Nintendo has been cooking up next for the Zelda franchise. There's no question that there are few games as beloved as the Ocarina of the Time, which puts Nintendo in an interesting position for this remake. As we all know, the Zelda formula has been totally shaken up with the latest entries, prioritizing emergent gameplay and sandboxes that allow players to explore and create, a total departure from the Ocarina-style that previously defined 3D Zelda.

Remakes in and of themselves, can be a bit of a touchy subject. While some players desire authenticity to the source material, preferring only a fresh coat of paint, others hope for something more - rethinking the dated parts, modernizing the experience, and improving it to match the current landscape. I'm of the mind that the latter is the only reasonable decision Nintendo can make. Let me explain.

Even if we ignore the more recent trajectory of the Zelda franchise, I believe Nintendo has a couple things working against a straight up visual remake. For one, the release of Ship of Harkinian has already covered that ground, by allowing enterprising fans to use the decompilation to replace assets and bring the visuals up to modern standards. Two, Nintendo themselves already had Grezzo do a visual remaster for the 3DS and that hardly feels befitting of a main console remake.

Ocarina of Time - with ray-tracing enabled, courtesy of Ship of Harkinian

Furthermore, I think Nintendo is in a position where any small change is destined to have cascading impacts. Over in our Discord, we were discussing the rumor that Nintendo might add a jump to the game, a la Roc's Feather. But when you consider even adding a bog standard feature, like a jump, all of a sudden you need to rethink a number of sections in the game that might be broken by such an addition.

This makes me think that Nintendo is ultimately in a position where they might need to do a bigger rethink of how they approach this remake, which I think opens the door to a bunch of new possibilities. It's no secret that there are lots of fans that are yearning for a return to the style that Ocarina of Time pioneered - myself included. As I discussed on PixlTalk a few weeks ago, these newer Zelda's just don't do it for me. It's clear they're built for the type of player that enjoys a big sandbox world and wants to leverage the emergent gameplay to have fun.

For me personally, I've always enjoyed the directed quest that 3D Zelda provides, and working through the puzzle-like dungeons and over world. Nintendo has the opportunity to revitalize this version of 3D Zelda, by rethinking this style of gameplay and bringing it up to modern standards. This might mean limiting the movement systems they built for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but still giving much more control to the player than Ocarina did in the past.

We saw Nintendo touch on these ideas in Skyward Sword, but there, they leaned quite heavily into all of the motion control gimmicks, which made it feel quite different and mostly delivered on the promise of the Wii's motion control capabilities in the context of a Zelda game. I think Nintendo can offer even smoother movement and improved sword play to achieve the goal of modernizing the gameplay.

I also think there's opportunity to leverage all of the story beats, the path through the quest, and the general idea of the locales, while completely reinventing them and growing their footprint to be a bit more grandiose. I would love to see this remake expand in the ways that it needs to, in order to make it feel as epic as the original. I believe Nintendo can achieve this without changing the bones of the experience.

It's my opinion that if they approach this the same way they did the Star Fox remake, it's going to fall a bit short. While it'll be great to see such a classic visually modernized and looking as gorgeous as Star Fox does, I believe it'll be leaving a lot on the table. Personally, that style of remake at what is likely a full premium price isn't of much interest to me personally. Certainly, it will find an audience, but I can already just play the game on my PC and bump up the visual fidelity for free.

Also, maybe I'm just being hopeful, but I want to see Nintendo return to this formula, but apply all of the modern trappings that we expect in our games these days. While Ocarina was incredible back in '98, Twilight Princess eclipsed it years later, and I feel like the Ocarina Remake needs to outdo its spiritual successor.

Thankfully, we'll know more soon and we can put all of this to rest, but I hope they're swinging for the fences and not just giving it a fresh coat of paint. What do you think Nintendo is cooking up? Let us know in the comments below.