vibrantstarfire/chaoxfix base account 🩵

So for that reason, until we are given more information and proven otherwise, I’m going to treat this upcoming Switch 2 remake as a full reimagining of Ocarina of Time. While I’m sure that my wishes and hopes will not be met by the game we end up getting (TotK says hello), it nonetheless feels nice to write them down and discuss them with . . . well, honestly, friends and colleagues. Zelda fandom at large is not a place I typically enjoy being. (Especially on places like Reddit, because woof.)

So let’s open the discussion.

Section Two: A reimagined Hyrule

As soon as this remake was . . . you know, I won’t even say announced. I would say as soon as rumors of this remake surfaced, there was already contention in the fandom:

Will the OoT remake be open world? And would that be a good or bad thing?

The consensus I’ve gathered from gamers on tumblr is that they feel that open world is bad. Gamers here are sick of seeing open world games, they think open world games are empty and terrible, bring back linear pathing, et cetera. This is particularly true among Zelda fans who hate the formula shakeup that BotW brought to the table.

While I do think there are valid criticisms of various open world games (e.g. not enough variety in terrain, not enough to discover), overall I happen to love open world adventure games, and I hope that, rather than see developers pull away from the concept, we instead start to see developers working hard to improve the concept. Open worlds are too empty? Okay, put more stuff in them, then. We don’t need to return to linearity and restrictive exploration, we need to improve upon the vast exploration we have. To this end, I actually love how the open world was handled in BotW, because I loved being able to discover the various landmarks, ruins, and environmental storytelling all over the map. TotK suffered not because it was open world, but because it added two new levels of open world exploration and then did absolute fuck-all with them. (Not to mention that it didn’t do enough to change the surface we were familiar with despite five or six years passing, but this is not an essay to criticize TotK, so I’ll put a stopper on that now.)

So with all of this said, yes, I do think that OoT could be improved by vastly expanding upon its Hyrule with an open world map. And before anyone gets angry with this suggestion, I want you to sit down and seriously ask yourself:

What was actually in Hyrule Field?

Think about it. OoT’s Hyrule Field is empty. It has Lon Lon Ranch, it has some peahats during the day in the child era (I’m pretty sure they are not there in the adult era), it has stalchildren and poes at night (I think the poes are adult era only), and . . . that is it. Now, to be fair, I’m not saying this to be critical. OoT was developed for the N64 in the late 90s. I think it is unfair to judge an N64 game from 1998 by standards set by Switch games released in 2017.

With that said though, if OoT is getting completely remade from the ground up for the Switch 2, then we do get to judge it by modern standards. Yes, the original was from 1998, but the Switch 2 remake is allegedly coming out this year. (I say allegedly because they showed us nothing and yet it is allegedly out in like six months? Hmm . . . I’m pressing X to doubt.) To say that it should be a copy-paste of the 1998 game with updated graphics, when we already have access to the 1998 game on the Switch (2) is, in my opinion, a folly. It would be egregiously bad for Nintendo to do that, especially when going back to the 1998 game shows you just how little there is in OoT’s Hyrule field and other areas.

(Which, again, I’m not saying that to knock OoT. It was incredible for its time. But let me repeat: It was incredible for its time. It is no longer 1998. Nintendo can and should do better.)

So to that end, I’m not saying to get rid of OoT’s map completely. I’m saying expand it. Wouldn’t you love a Hyrule Field that’s three or four times the size that it is? A Death Mountain range that feels like actual mountains, and climbing mechanics brought in from BotW? How about giving us a far larger and more populated Castletown, to make the devastation it suffers in the adult era even more potent? What about populating Hyrule with other settlements and towns? Kakariko could be modified to actually be home to Sheikah. We could get settlements like Deya Village and even an OoT-era Hateno Village. (Or it doesn’t have to be named Hateno Village, but you get me.) We could get caves in that could be explored, Zora River could be fleshed out to carve a deeper pathway into Hyrule Field, the Gerudo could have more than just a fucking fortress in the desert, so on and so forth.

I don’t want OoT’s map to be the same as BotW’s map. Apart from being lazy (and I don’t think possible since the graphical change would require entirely brand new assets), it wouldn’t make sense given how many millennia after OoT BotW takes place. But I do think that taking the same general map re: the placements of the big settlements (e.g. Kokiri Forest, Zora’s Domain, Gerudo Desert), but then greatly expanding on that to make Hyrule feel more alive could only be a good thing. I loved riding Epona back in the day, but riding Epona around a big open field could only stay interesting for so long. I want to see a Hyrule that is vibrant and thriving in the child era, and devastated and struggling in the adult era. I want to be made to care about this Hyrule, and I feel that the best way to do that is to make it much bigger, more populated, and with so much more to explore and discover.

(Also, sticking this here because I don’t know where else to put it, but we should be able to ride filly Epona as child Link as well. He rode her in MM, and in fact took her all the way out of Hyrule in MM, he should be able to ride her around Hyrule after befriending her in OoT.)