Nintendo tried adding fast travel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, before devs realised “we were missing out on the moments of discovery”

Nintendo has confirmed that its remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo Switch 2 is being developed internally by Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development (EPD) Production Group No. 3, the studio responsible for mainline Zelda games since the early 2000s. The revelation came through Nintendo’s Ask the Developer Q&A series ahead of the game’s November 5 launch.

Producer Eiji Aonuma shared a notable development decision: he initially requested the team add fast-travel warp points throughout Hyrule, inspired by Breath of the Wild’s system. After implementation and testing, Aonuma reversed the decision, recognizing that fast travel undermined the original game’s core appeal: the sense of discovery during exploration. The team preserved the classic traversal experience, acknowledging that navigation itself was integral to the game’s design rather than a barrier to overcome.

The remake’s artistic direction has also drawn attention. Character designs—featuring a stylized, puppet-like aesthetic for Link, Zelda, and others rather than photorealistic rendering—have generated mixed reactions among longtime fans. Art director Aya Shida addressed these aesthetic choices in the developer interviews.

Aonuma emphasized that remaking Ocarina of Time served an educational purpose: helping junior developers on the current team understand the original game’s foundational design philosophy. Since many team members have primarily worked on recent Zelda titles, direct engagement with this classic was intended to inform future game development and trigger new creative insights across the franchise.

Nintendo tried adding fast travel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, before devs realised “we were missing out on the moments of discovery”

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