- Controls
- A jump button, a sprint, a free camera and item switching without the pause menu.
- Presentation
- Rebuilt visuals, fully voiced cutscenes, expanded dialogue and re-recorded music.
- New
- Threads of Time, the Hall of Fallen Heroes, humming songs into the microphone, ZELDA NOTES.
- Kept
- Loading screens between the big areas of Hyrule, kept on purpose, Eiji Aonuma said.
Before you read
Everything here is what Nintendo has shown or said, or what writers reported after a supervised demo of about 90 minutes to two hours on 14 October 2026. The demo covered Kokiri Forest, Inside the Great Deku Tree, Hyrule Field, Castle Town and the Forest Temple, so a change elsewhere in the game is simply not known yet. Where this page mentions how something worked before, it says so: that is the 1998 original, given only for comparison.
Controls and movement
⤴️ Jump on a button
Link jumps whenever you press the button. In the 1998 original he only jumped by running off a ledge. Previews describe the Kokiri Sword chest moved onto a high platform so that reaching it teaches the jump.
🏃 Sprint
Holding the roll button turns the roll into a sprint, so there is no need to roll across Hyrule Field over and over as players did in the 1998 original.
🎥 Free camera
The right stick turns the camera everywhere, including Castle Town, which in the 1998 original was seen from fixed camera angles.
🎒 Items on the fly
Holding a shoulder button brings up the items and you pick one with the stick, without opening the pause menu.
🎯 Motion aiming
The slingshot, the bow and other aimed items can be aimed by moving the controller.
🎵 Hum the songs
Ocarina songs can be played with the buttons, hummed into the Nintendo Switch 2 microphone, or played on a real ocarina.
Loading, time and the world
- Loading screens stay between the big areas, such as Kokiri Forest, Hyrule Field and Castle Town. Eiji Aonuma said in the September Direct that the team kept them on purpose, to keep the feel of the original.
- Inside an area, buildings and shops can be entered without a loading screen. In Castle Town, the square, the alleys and the shops form one connected place.
- Time keeps passing wherever Link is, towns included, so Castle Town goes from day to night. In the 1998 original, time stood still in towns.
- Hyrule Field keeps its broad layout but has new ground shapes: more rocks, ruins and height, and views that reach further across the field.
- Castle Town is busier than before, and its people have new things to say.
Sound, voices and looks
- Cutscenes are fully voiced, and Nintendo says the dialogue has been expanded. Previews describe new lines for Kokiri, Castle Town people and shopkeepers.
- Link himself is not expected to say much: two outlets that watched the September Direct said so.
- Nintendo calls the new music "symphonic orchestral music" and describes the soundtrack as re-orchestrated; previews describe recordings of real musicians in place of the 1998 original's synthesised sound.
- How big the band is depends on who you ask. Nintendo of America's store page and overview trailer news speak of full symphonic orchestral music. IGN's preview said the Kokiri Forest theme sounded like "just a handful of real musicians". The Guardian's preview called the soundtrack newly orchestrated without describing its size.
- The visuals are rebuilt from the textures up, in a detailed style between realistic and stylised. Link's new face divided people after the September Direct, and hands-on writers were still discussing it in October.
- Two previews reported the game running at 60 frames per second in the demo; Nintendo has not given a frame rate.
New features
🧵 Threads of Time
A screen in the pause menu that recaps the story so far, shows your current objectives and fills in a large tapestry of Link's journey as you play.
🗿 Hall of Fallen Heroes
Nintendo of America's name for a new place with statues of the monsters you have defeated. You can read about them there, and challenge them, bosses included, to a rematch. The room's name differs by source: Nintendo of America's 14 October news post calls it the Hall of Fallen Heroes; Kotaku, citing the overview trailer, and Nintendo Life and Nintendo Everything call it the Hall of Fallen Foes.
🧚 A quieter Navi
Two previews describe Navi interrupting less, with short silent speech bubbles on screen in place of many of her spoken calls.
📱 ZELDA NOTES
A service in the Nintendo Switch App for smart devices: a record of what you did, a daily quiz, and an ocarina you can play and write songs for on the phone.
🎭 amiibo
Any Legend of Zelda series amiibo gives in-game help. The new Young Link and Young Zelda figures, due in 2027, give masks that Link can wear.
🧩 Reworked rooms
Several rooms keep their purpose but work differently. For example, a floating platform in the Great Deku Tree became a bridge that crumbles under Link.
How much is really rebuilt
- Sources describe the scale of the change differently. Nintendo of America says the game was "built from the ground up" for Nintendo Switch 2 and calls it "completely reborn", and IGN's September report also said remade from the ground up. Eiji Aonuma called it "a faithful interpretation" in the Direct, as The Verge and IGN reported. After playing, IGN's preview found it "far from a 1:1 remake", with redesigned challenges in familiar rooms. GamesRadar, after the Direct, said Hyrule looked largely unchanged apart from the visuals; NPR's preview called the mechanical changes "comparatively restrained"; Nintendo Life's preview found the basic geography broadly faithful; and Kotaku called it mostly a faithful reimagining.
- What every source agrees on: the main structure and the order of places look the same as in the 1998 original, while controls, presentation and many individual rooms have changed.
Not announced
Nintendo has said nothing about Master Quest, a harder mode or downloadable content for this remake, and it is sold for Nintendo Switch 2 only. Counts of dungeons, Heart Pieces, Gold Skulltulas, songs or bottles have not been confirmed for the remake either: figures from the 1998 original or the 3DS version may not hold here.
Cross-checked
Cross-checked on 22 October 2026 against Nintendo's own pages (Nintendo of America's store page and its 14 October 2026 overview trailer news, Nintendo UK and Nintendo France), the reports on the 8 September 2026 Zelda Direct by Game Informer, IGN, The Verge, Polygon, GamesRadar, GameSpot and Eurogamer, the 14 October 2026 hands-on previews by IGN, Nintendo Life, VGC, The Verge, NPR and The Guardian, and Kotaku's and Nintendo Everything's lists of changes. Two-source points: the Kokiri Sword chest and the Deku Tree bridge (IGN and Nintendo Life; IGN and Kotaku); Link's limited speech (GameSpot, IGN); 60 frames per second (IGN, VGC); the quieter Navi (Nintendo Life, VGC). Kotaku and Nintendo Everything call the rematch room the Hall of Fallen Foes; Nintendo of America writes Hall of Fallen Heroes, which is the name used here. Not from a playthrough: nobody here has played it.