Everything We Learnt in the Zelda Direct

Earlier today, Nintendo aired the first of this week’s Nintendo Direct presentations. This one was focused on The Legend of Zelda series and its 40th anniversary, and featured a barrage of information related to things like the Ocarina of Time remake and merch to celebrate there.

Here’s the presentation on YouTube, if you somehow missed watching it live:

But let’s say you want a bit more detail. Well, that’s where we come in! Here’s our full breakdown of the Zelda Direct, plus everything we learnt while watching it…

40th Anniversary Concert

With our first port of call being an orchestrated medley of sorts. An awesome arrangement of the Legend of Zelda theme, Zelda’s Lullaby and Ganondorf’s theme. You can listen to that one here:

The Legend of Zelda Movie

Which bring us to the Legend of Zelda Movie. Which to be honest, didn’t really get a whole lot.

Seriously. We know it’s simply called The Legend of Zelda. We know it’s an original story inspired by the series and its various games. We know it’s being released on April 30th 2027.

That’s it. We don’t know any more of the cast, we don’t get to see a trailer, there’s no concept art… Honestly, the coverage for this film felt really minimal even by Nintendo Direct standards.

Still, let’s move on.

Zelda Music Concerts

To an interesting announcement we never saw coming. Nintendo is going to hold various concerts around the world for The Legend of Zelda music. These will take place in Japan from January to April, as well as America, Europe and Australia at later dates. Here are the dates for the concerts in question:

Japanese Concerts

Location	City	Date
Tokyo Garden Theatre	Tokyo	23rd of January 2027
Fukuoka Civil Hall	Fukuoka	6th of February 2027
Sapporo Cultural Arts Theatre Hitaro	Hokkaido	3rd of March 2027
ROHM Theatre Kyoto	Kyoto	3rd of April 2027 and 4th of April 2027
K-Arena Yokohama	Kanagawa	27th of April 2027

International Concerts

Location	Date	First City
North America	February 22th 2027	Chicago
Europe	April 3rd 2027	London
Australia	May 13th 2027	Melbourne

Nintendo Museum

They also mention that tickets will have a Zelda 40th anniversary theme, and that the ‘Super Family Restaurant’ will open with a statue of wild era Link in the middle. Riveting stuff for sure.

Nintendo Today

Meanwhile, a few updates were provided about Nintendo Today features. These include the reveal that the daily animations based on the series will change, that updates for the movie will be included in the app, and that a series of collectible cards will be available as well. Presumably, the format used for promoting The Super Mario Galaxy Movie worked enough that they decided it’d be neat to reuse it here as well.

Collectibles

There are also brief glimpses provided for real life ocarinas based on the Ocarina of Time from the game of the same name (this will be important later), the Mineru’s Construct amiibo for Tears of the Kingdom, an artbook based on the series available at the Nintendo Museum, a LEGO Link and Epona set, the Tears of the Kingdom inspired character figures revealed earlier this year and many other random trinkets and knick knacks.

New Amiibo

Two new amiibo are being released too. These are based on Young Link and Young Zelda, and give the player masks of their respective characters’ N64 designs when worn.

Zelda Anniversary Edition Switch 2/Accessories

The Direct also showcases some special Zelda variant Switch 2 consoles and accessories as well. These are decorated with the triforce symbol, and are due to be released on the 29th of October 2026.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Switch 2)

Which brings us to the bulk of the presentation, and the one truly interesting thing explored in it. The 2026 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Indeed, while the previous glimpse we got only showed the tapestry from the intro and Link waking up at the start of the game, this had both some detailed gameplay and a brand-new trailer showing off the title in action.

And well, to say it’s an interesting update is probably an understatement. You see, visually speaking, this is a massive leap in terms of quality. It’s impossible to say this doesn’t look a million times more detailed than the Nintendo 64 version:

However, the actual structure of the game world seems to be mostly intact compared to the original. Yeah, the areas have new environmental details here and there. Like how the part of Hyrule Field nearest Lake Hylia seems to be a marsh in this version:

But the actual layout hasn’t been drastically overhauled or expanded upon. Hyrule Field is still a fairly small, barren area like in the Nintendo 64 game, while Hyrule Castle Town is still arguably closer to a village.

Which is something that may be interesting to see in game. Will these limited areas still feel vast and inviting when you can cross them in a flash?

That said, the gameplay has certainly received its fair share of tweaks. For one thing, jumping and climbing seem to be a bit more influenced by Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom this time around.

Since well, Link can jump manually in this game now. Yeah, the whole ‘auto jump after running off an edge’ thing has been nuked here. You’ll have to actually platform like it was a Mario game.

Climbing on the other hand is still limited to specific walls and areas, but has still received a few quality-of-life changes nonetheless. Like say, being able to jump up the wall quickly.

Yeah, no more slowly plodding up walls in this one. Link can blast to the top much more quickly now, without any worries about stamina.

And that’s true of a lot of things. For example, instead of having to roll constantly to cover ground quickly, Link can now dash after rolling while holding a button, and continue doing so indefinitely until you let go of said button.

So, movement seems to be much more convenient here. Link can run and jump around at high speed for as long as he likes, and the clunkier elements of the N64 version’s moveset seem to have been greatly minimised.

Camera control is a lot more advanced too. Indeed, while the original game often limited you to a handful of possible camera angles, or locked you into a pre-rendered area view…

This version removes those limits altogether. Now, all pre-rendered locations are in full 3D with a normal camera, and the whole game lets you move said camera with the second analogue stick:

Yeah, they’ve taken some much-needed lessons from the modern games there, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately, they’ve also taken a lesson they probably didn’t need in terms of items. Since well, it seems like the item select menu is now heavily inspired by the controversial one used in Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom:

This is something we’re a tad concerned about. Since well, selecting fuse materials or echoes wasn’t exactly practical in those games.

No, it was a long, tedious process that could be confusing as all heck. And this system, seems to be based on that to a tee.

Admittedly, it’s not as bad here. Items tended to be either Young Link or Adult Link exclusive, and of certain types that could probably be handled in other ways:

Young Link Items

Boomerang
Fairy Slingshot
Magic Bean
Masks
- Keaton Mask
- Skull Mask
- Spooky Mask
- Bunny Hood
- Mask of Truth
- Goron Mask
- Zora Mask
- Gerudo Mask

Adult Link Items

Fairy Bow
- Arrow
- Fire Arrow
- Ice Arrow
- Light Arrow
Hookshot/Longshot
Megaton Hammer
Boots
- Iron Boots
- Hover Boots

Both

Bombs
Bombchus
Bottle
Deku Nuts
Deku Sticks
Din’s Fire
Farore’s Wind
Fairy Ocarina/Ocarina of Time
Lens of Truth
Nayru’s Love

So, the game could definitely remove some useless items from the menu, or stick others in dropdowns.

But we do need to wait and see how this is handled here.

Outside of item management, the game also has a quest log like in the wild era titles, and voiced cutscenes. We’re not sure who voices which character in the latter, but common consensus seems to be that Matt Mercer returns as Ganondorf here too.

There’s also Zelda Notes, which returns here. For the most part, it has similar features to BotW and TotK, but there are some new ones too.

These include a Zelda quiz you can play once per day (or infinitely by spending rupees in game), and an Ocarina that lets you create and share your own songs.

And while unlocking in-game songs for the latter is neat, we suspect the creation ability is where things will really shine. You can share these songs through QR codes, so we can see a community spring up here. Like Studio21 for WarioWare: DIY, or Mario Paint Hangouts for Mario Paint.

Hence there’s some interesting stuff here too. Definitely gonna be worth checking out the full set of features in Zelda Notes, that’s for sure.

The Release Date

Which finally brings us to the release date. When will The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time be released on Switch 2?

November 5th 2026.

Yeah, it’s not too long before the GTA 6 release date to be honest. Seems Nintendo isn’t too worried about that title overshadowing any of their games, unlike many others in the industry at the moment.

Oh, and there will also be a special limited-edition version with a flashier box art design. Well, if textured foil counts as flashier anyway.

Still, that’s everything in the Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct, and everything we’ve seen of the Ocarina of Time remake too. So, check out the gallery below for a ton of high-quality screenshots and promo art for the game…