Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake Is Reportedly Happening — and It Would Define the Switch 2
The Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake rumors have too many credible sources behind them to dismiss. If it's real, it's the game that defines the Switch 2.
The rumors have been building for months, but a roundup from 9to5Toys this week puts them in one place with enough sourcing to take seriously: Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake is reportedly “quite likely” for 2026, a new Star Fox game is targeting this summer, Metroid is in the mix, and a special edition Switch 2 hardware bundle is apparently coming along for the ride. Nintendo’s second half of 2026 is starting to look like something — and if even half of this lands, the entire conversation around the Switch 2 changes.
The credibility question is where you have to start with any Nintendo rumor, because Nintendo leaks badly but their PR containment is also good enough that false rumors circulate constantly. This particular sourcing pool is not that. The same group of insiders behind this roundup correctly called AC: Black Flag Resynced and GTA 6’s November 19 release date — two calls that required real access, not educated guessing. That doesn’t make this confirmed. But it raises the baseline from “interesting speculation” to “worth paying attention to.” When NateTheHate and the 9to5Toys network are aligned on something this specific, that’s a data point.
So take it as: probably real. And if it’s real, let’s talk about what it actually means.
Ocarina of Time is not just a beloved game. It is, by most serious accounts, the game that taught 3D game design to an entire industry.
Ocarina of Time is not just a beloved game. It is, by most serious accounts, the game that taught 3D game design to an entire industry. It came out in 1998 on N64, scored a 99 on Metacritic — a number it held for years as the highest-rated game in review history — and sold around 7.6 million copies at a time when selling 7.6 million N64 games was remarkable. The 3DS remake in 2011 sold another 7 million. This is a game with multigenerational pull. People who were eight years old when OoT dropped are now 35 and own Switch 2s. Their kids don’t know what Ocarina of Time is and might be ready to find out.
A full remake — not a port, not an HD upscale, a ground-up rebuild — would be the most culturally significant Nintendo release since Breath of the Wild. That’s the comparison that matters here. BotW didn’t just sell the original Switch. It defined the original Switch. It gave the hardware a reason to exist in people’s minds beyond the gimmick of it being a handheld/home console hybrid. “It’s the thing you play BotW on” was the Switch’s identity for its first year, and that identity did a lot of work. The Switch 2 has been selling well — 17.37 million units through Q3 of Nintendo’s fiscal 2026, outpacing the original Switch at the same point in its lifecycle — but it doesn’t have that anchor yet. It doesn’t have the game that IS the Switch 2. An Ocarina of Time remake would be that game.
BotW didn’t just sell the original Switch. It defined the original Switch. The Switch 2 doesn’t have that game yet. An OoT remake would be it.
Nintendo has been running a nostalgia-remake playbook for years and it works every time. Link’s Awakening remake in 2019. Metroid Prime Remastered in 2023. Echoes of Wisdom last year. These aren’t cynical cash grabs — or not purely, anyway. They’re smart allocations of proven IP into new hardware cycles. The risk is low because you’re working from source material that’s already been validated. The ceiling is high because some of these games sell to people who haven’t played them before, not just to people who want to play them again. Applied to OoT, which has a higher cultural profile than any of those prior remakes, the upside is enormous.
Star Fox is the more interesting rumor from a strategic standpoint. Ocarina of Time making it to 2026 would surprise nobody who follows Nintendo’s habits. A new Star Fox game would be a genuine signal that Nintendo is expanding the portfolio rather than just cycling through the same four franchises. Star Fox has been dormant since Star Fox Zero in 2016 — a game that was received poorly and seemed to put the franchise in a holding pattern indefinitely. If a new entry is actually targeting summer, that’s Nintendo making a bet that there’s still an audience for this franchise, and that the Switch 2’s install base is large enough to justify bringing one of their neglected IPs back to life. I’d argue Star Fox done right — classic-style flying, multiplayer, actually good — is a genuinely appealing proposition in 2026. The genre hasn’t exactly been crowded.
Metroid in the mix makes sense almost automatically. Metroid Prime Remastered was a critical darling. Metroid Dread sold over 3 million copies — confirmed by developer MercurySteam’s CEO — which was remarkable for a franchise that’s historically been a Nintendo critical hit/commercial underperformer. A Super Metroid remake with a pixel art aesthetic — which is what the current rumors suggest — would be the logical next step and would be received enthusiastically by the audience that went all-in on Dread.
The picture that’s forming is Nintendo treating the Switch 2’s second half of 2026 the way they should have been treating it all along. The hardware is strong. The sales pace is ahead of schedule. But a console needs content moments — not just good quarterly software, but defining release events that generate cultural conversation. May’s Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a nice game and it will sell to the right audience, but it is not a cultural moment. OoT remake would be. Star Fox announcing this month would generate actual headlines. Metroid keeps the streak going for a franchise that’s finally been rehabilitated.
The next concrete data point is whenever Nintendo makes its first major post-Yoshi announcement. If a Star Fox reveal drops in May, the rest of the rumor set gets significantly more credible. If summer comes and goes with nothing, this all moves back to the “interesting but unverified” pile. Watch for a Nintendo Direct announcement window — they tend to use the late spring Direct to set up summer launches. That’s the moment the dam either opens or it doesn’t.
My read: believe the Zelda one. The OoT remake has been too consistent across too many credible sources for too long to dismiss. Star Fox at summer feels tight on timeline but plausible. Metroid feels like 2027 is more likely than 2026. But if Nintendo actually delivers OoT remake and Star Fox in the same year, alongside whatever else is in the pipeline — that’s not just a good content year. That’s a statement about what kind of platform Switch 2 intends to be.
This time last year, people were asking whether Switch 2 had the software to justify the hardware. That question is about to get answered.
