{"id":659868,"date":"2026-05-10T08:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T08:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/659868\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T08:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T08:55:09","slug":"the-ocarina-of-time-remake-needs-to-bring-yusuke-nakanos-art-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/659868\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ocarina of Time Remake Needs to Bring Yusuke Nakano’s Art Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time<\/a>\u2019s rumored Switch 2 remake is pretty much confirmed at this point.<\/p>\n

Star Fox’s reveal by Nintendo on May 6 proved that the highly publicized leaks surrounding both games were real, which is ample reason for Zelda fans to remove their tin foil hats and start actually discussing this remake more seriously. And the discussion around any bottom-up remake has to begin with its visuals.<\/p>\n

Ocarina of Time’s graphics and art direction were as perfect as they could\u2019ve been in the late 90s on the N64, which is partially why it remains the highest-rated game on Metacritic<\/a> after nearly 30 years. Remaking this game for the Switch 2 will force the Zelda Team to take a very different approach to its visuals from what they’ve done recently with the Wild Era, at least if they want to recapture the essence of their most acclaimed game ever.<\/p>\n

While figuring out how to pull that off would usually prove quite difficult, iconic Japanese artist Yusuke Nakano already gave Nintendo the perfect roadmap for what 3D Zelda was always supposed to look like. <\/p>\n

The Original Art For Ocarina of Time Is Everything the Switch 2 Remake Should Aspire Toward<\/p>\n

Zelda fans who were around when the original Ocarina of Time dropped in the late 90s could not have missed the beautiful art of Yusuke Nakano. Nakano created multiple artworks for the game that were used in various places, such as in promotional material, the game\u2019s manual, and even official strategy guides.<\/p>\n

However, those artworks are only a fraction of what he actually did for the game. Not only did Nakano create many of the most iconic drawings for the game that are still instantly recognizable today, he also played a key role in the actual character design.<\/p>\n

It was Nakano who came up with Link\u2019s physical appearance, having specifically based his face on a popular actor at the time (who many have come to theorize must have been Leonardo DiCaprio). Nakano is also the person who designed the iconic Hylian Crest<\/a> as seen on the Hylian Shield.<\/p>\n

Looking at many of Nakano’s artworks during the period, it’s clear he was trying to give an almost 3D appearance to the 2D renderings. During that time, it was a truly idealistic view of what video games were supposed to be: a pipe-dream of sorts. While Link being lifted in the air by that 3D-style version of Morpha looked awesome in Nakano’s art, there was no way it could’ve ever look that good in the actual game. Until now.<\/p>\n

Anyone unsure of what taking this approach could actually look like in the game, need look no further than a fan work-in-progress mod to the popular “Ship of Harkinian” OOT PC port (as seen in the images above).<\/p>\n

Posted on Game Banana<\/a>, the creator of the mod is making it their sole purpose to bring Nakano’s art style into the game engine, at least insofar as the character models are concerned. The results speak for themselves.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the mod is still in the very early stages of development. After 9 months, it’s still only about 1% complete. At this rate, it’s unlikely this work will be completed before even Nintendo’s own remake comes out, but the work nonetheless serves as a great indicator of how Nakano’s OOT art would look if respectfully adapted into the game.<\/p>\n

In his original OOT artworks, Nakano\u2019s style was a beautiful mix of dark realism and anime-style charm. That all came together to make for intense, gritty action scenes when needed, but also whimsical, fairytale imagery depending on the atmosphere Nakano intended to capture. That duality between darkness and light, good and evil, future and past is exactly what Ocarina of Time was always about, which is why finally capturing Nakano\u2019s original art style in fully rendered 3D is the obvious choice for the Switch 2 remake.<\/p>\n

Yusuke Nakano Already Gave Nintendo the Perfect Blueprint for the Art Style of Zelda’s Future Switch 2 Games<\/p>\n

Nakano\u2019s artistic renderings of Link brought the true vision of Zelda\u2019s 3D Hyrule to life, at a time when the N64 didn\u2019t have quite enough polygons to fully render it. That, by the grace of Goddess Hylia herself, has changed.<\/p>\n

As each recent first-party game that Nintendo has put out repeatedly has proven, the Switch 2 is the closest to ‘next-gen’ a Nintendo console has been in over a decade. Nintendo was still making magic happen with the original Switch, but the system never had the power of even the PS4, let alone the PS5 or Xbox Series.<\/p>\n

While the recently revealed new character designs for Star Fox have proven divisive among long-time fans, there\u2019s absolutely no denying that the detail on those characters and their level of realism is truly impressive. This has only been made possible because of the Switch 2 hardware, and it\u2019ll open amazing possibilities for the Ocarina of Time remake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The OG Ocarina of Time for N64 did make its best attempt at realizing Nakano\u2019s vision, but it was held back by the hardware limitations of its time. If done right, this upcoming remake may truly be a major departure from the art style of recent games while also being a big return-to-form for the series in getting back to what it always wanted to be, but was never capable of achieving.<\/p>\n

The Switch 2 undeniably has the raw hardware power to pull it off. In fact, Nintendo has already made a few valiant attempts to realize Nakano’s vision even before the original Switch ever came out: first, with that now-infamous Space World tech demo all the way back in 2000; then, with the iconic Wii U tech demo in 2011.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no denying the Switch 2 can capture every detail present in Nakano\u2019s art better than ever before, Nintendo just has to be willing take that leap.<\/p>\n

Notably, there has already been talk behind the scenes that Nintendo and the Zelda Team are definitely experimenting with a new art direction for the Ocarina of Time remake. It only makes sense. This will be their first step away from the Wild Era, and the past 3 mainline 3D Zelda games<\/a> (Skyward Sword, BOTW and TOTK) all used some version of cel-shaded graphics to bring Hyrule to life.<\/p>\n

The last time Zelda didn\u2019t use cel-shading in a mainline 3D game was Twilight Princess 20 years ago. The OOT remake is the perfect game to use to experiment a bit with a new art style before the next mainline Zelda game<\/a> for Switch 2. Hopefully, Yusuke Nakano\u2019s art will still be used as its inspiration.<\/p>\n

The closer the remake can get to Yusuke Nakano\u2019s art-style for the original game, the closer it will be to the idealized vision of what 3D Zelda was always meant to look like.<\/p>\n

There’s still no official release date announcement for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Switch 2 remake, but multiple insiders have pointed to a June reveal for the game and a potential 2026 holiday season release window.<\/p>\n

\"the-legend-of-zelda_-ocarina-of-time-tag-page-cover-art.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Released<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNovember 21, 1998<\/p>\n

ESRB<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tE10+ for Everyone 10+: Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Themes<\/p>\n

Developer(s)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNintendo<\/p>\n

Publisher(s)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNintendo<\/p>\n

Engine<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tZelda 64 Engine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time\u2019s rumored Switch 2 remake is pretty much confirmed at this point.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-659868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}