It’s no secret that we love The Legend Of Zelda here at Retro Dodo. While Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 were the first games that I got for the N64, it was Ocarina of Time that truly captured my heart and mind; reading about it in Nintendo Official Magazine made me want to become a games journalist, and now here I am, talking to you about possible Zelda remakes and remasters heading our way on the Nintendo Switch.
Over the course of this article, I’m going to take a look at all of the Legend of Zelda rumours flitting around the internet, discussing whether we’re going to be getting a remaster or remake, which titles Zelda fans are hoping for, and our thoughts on what game we’d like to see next!
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Twilight Princess Is Supposedly Already Finished
Multiple sources across the internet are citing Twilight Princess as already being made and ready to drop at any time. It’s the kind of thing that Nintendo has done before; just look at the shadow drop of Metroid Prime: Remastered on the Switch.
From games journalists to leakers like Midori, there seems to be a lot of confusion as to why this finished game hasn’t yet dropped. It has supposedly been completed for a while now, and as many Wii U games have appeared on the Switch, this fact also has us scratching our heads a little bit. I mean, Twilight Princess HD came out in 2016 and the previous game came out in 2006… does that mean Nintendo is saving a ready-made remake for 2026 and purposely keeping them all 10 years apart?
The Current Zelda Games On Switch
Let’s think about the current Zelda games we have on Switch too; there’s already Link’s Awakening HD and Skyward Sword HD, and the console currently hosts Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Oracle of Ages/Seasons, Minish Cap, The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link on the NSO subscription. Then there’s Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. So really, the only games missing from the platform are Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, then it would basically be the ultimate Zelda compendium console!
I honestly don’t see Nintendo making many new games before the new Switch 2 drops; they’re going down the remaster and remake route for the time being while they wrap things up with the Nintendo Switch and prepare for the new console release, and we’ve already seen Mario Vs Donkey Kong, Super Mario RPG, and Thousand-Year Door dropping, as well as Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD coming up, which further backs up this theory.
Wind Waker HD Could Easily Be The Next Remaster
Let’s look at the Wind Waker next. The original game dropped in 2002 on the GameCube, and the HD remaster dropped 11 years later in 2013. So really, it’s about time that we had both a Wind Waker and Twilight Princess bundle dropping on the Switch, and that’s exactly what a lot of fans on our socials have been calling for.
A bundle of both games would be amazing, though I’m sure Nintendo wouldn’t miss an opportunity to make twice as much money if they shipped both games separately. A remaster of Wind Waker for the Switch was reportedly in the works back in 2021 along with a Twilight Princess Switch edition, and while they would have been great as fillers to put us on between BotW and TotK, they would undoubtedly keep us occupied between now and the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2.
Launch Titles For The Switch 2?
There is also another school of thought; what if these games dropped as launch titles for Nintendo’s newest machine? If Nintendo is as intense with their rumour searching as we are, then they will undoubtedly know how much the Zelda fanbase wants Wind Waker and Twilight Princess – they’ve held off on remaking them for a reason, after all.
As documented by Gaming Bible, Jeff Grub, a gaming insider known for having inside scoops from the industry, has supposedly known about a remaster collection of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker for a while now. Speaking a couple of years ago, he said “They want to have a Zelda thing every year, they’ve been holding onto this, why wouldn’t they just put it out this year, and if they don’t put this out or some other Zelda thing this year, I just will not understand.”
A Remake Of Ocarina Of Time Seems Most Likely
Of course, we need to consider the fact that it’s about time Ocarina of Time got some love. It’s been 13 years since the game was remastered on the 3DS and 13 years before that since it came out on the N64. Reddit user TheLunarVaux has some great comments that mirror my own views when it comes to Ocarina of Time, the main point being that the original game of the last remake we had, Link’s Awakening, came out before Ocarina of Time, with the game dropping on the DMG in 1993. So, if Nintendo was looking to release a Zelda remake, Ocarina as the next game in the series from that point on would be a great choice.
TheLunarVaux also goes on to say ‘The team who remade Link’s Awakening, Grezzo, also made Ocarina of Time 3D. In a recent interview where Eiji Aonuma definitively confirmed that there would be no TotK sequel, he was also asked if there would be an Ocarina of Time remake, to which he replied, “No comment”.’ Was that Eiji giving us a little clue, perhaps?
Think about this as well; the Zelda world is a little bit divided at the moment, with some people preferring the old-school Zelda way of doing things rather than the new open-world adventures. Remaking classic titles like Ocarina would give those fans exactly what they’ve been looking for.
Ocarina of Time hasn’t hasn’t had any remake options yet either; it’s been ported to different systems and only features on the NSO subscription. And even if you’re not a Zelda fan per se, you can’t deny that it’s one of the most influential titles ever made and is considered one of the greatest games of all time by critics everywhere. Having a remake of this title would help younger gamers experience the classic and help to keep it alive with modern audiences for many years to come, which is only ever a good thing if you ask me.
Remakes Or Remasters?
As far as I am concerned, we need to be getting full remakes of Zelda games now. All of the 3D Zelda games have been remastered already, and while we’ve not had remasters of titles like Oracle Of Ages/Seasons, I honestly believe Nintendo won’t remaster their handheld titles for the Switch. Remakes, however, in the same vain as Link’s Awakening, would be a great shout.
I would love to see a remake of Oracle of Ages/Seasons in the style of the advert that dropped back in the day, a similar way to how they remade the Original Pokemon Adventures with Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee, bringing them into the 3D realm. Coincidentally, an internet search on the subject brings up a page on the fact that the games are coming to Nintendo Switch, though the page is under construction and has no credible sources, so I would take this with a pinch of salt.
Leaker PapaGenos seems to think that we won’t be getting a Seasons/Ages remake, however, but the general consensus does seem to be that we’re getting a remake rather than a remaster if the information mined from Nintendo HQ is found to be true!
And then there’s the question of whether it’s too early for a Breath of the Wild remaster. In my opinion, it’s far too early; even if we had the chance of a 4K version for the Switch 2, I would still say that it was too soon. While TotK is the sequel to BotW, it’s still set in the same version of Hyrule and features a lot of the same characters and areas, so I think a remaster would just be ‘too much of the same’ as we’ve had for the past couple of years.
Clues In Codenames
Midori has discovered that there is a new codename over at Nintendo HQ alluding to a new game. As the codename for the Link’s Awakening remake was ‘Richard’, then the codename ‘Edward’ could allude to another Zelda Remake in the pipeline. While there’s no concrete evidence for this, it does make sense and could well be true!
Could ‘Edward’ relate to the rumour that we’re about to get a game where Zelda is playable; perhaps it could be a remake of the Philips CDI game Zelda: The Wand of Gamelan. That would be a curveball, a full remake of a game that many Zelda fans won’t have played would be amazing; it would feel new while keeping an old title from the past alive for modern gamers.
Final Thoughts
As always, rumours should be taken with a pinch of salt, but these articles give us, and you, a space to get excited about what Nintendo has in store for us next. Personally, I would love to see a full, ground-up remake of Ocarina of Time dropping onto the Switch, a game with graphics like Breath of the Wild that allows me to fully experience my favourite game all over again in a new light. I think it’s something that we’ll see dropping on the Switch rather than the Nintendo Switch 2, and I’m hoping that we’ll hear more about it at the next Nintendo Direct.
As far as new releases for the Nintendo Switch 2 go, I think that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess remakes will drop as part of the console’s launch lineup. As I wrote in my article compiling all of the Nintendo Switch 2 rumours together, I’ve been racking my brain thinking which titles would drop with the console to help push it, and while a completely new Zelda game so soon after TotK seems unlikely, remade versions of those classic games would make me give Nintendo all of my money in a heartbeat.
Obviously, we don’t have any information about release dates for any of these games as Nintendo hasn’t let anything slip officially, but as soon as we get a whiff of something official from Nintendo HQ, we’ll be letting you know!
