Industry veteran explains why Nintendo decided to release a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Translated with AI from the Russian original.
Eiji Aonuma wanted young Nintendo developers to rediscover the iconic
The Legend of Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma explained why Nintendo decided to return to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and release a full-fledged remake of the game.
In an interview for Nintendo’s official Ask the Developer column, Aonuma noted that many modern Nintendo EPD developers have worked primarily on later entries in the series. Some of them are only superficially familiar with Ocarina of Time, while others played it back in their childhood. Therefore, the producer wondered how well the new generation of staff understands the significance of this game for the entire franchise.
Aonuma, for whom Ocarina of Time was his first project in the Zelda series, felt that a full remake of the game would help the team understand its structure and original design principles. He hoped that this process would provide young specialists with new ideas that would be useful when creating future installments of the franchise. The 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda served as an additional reason to return to the classic.
Aonuma-san did not want to impose his own vision of the remake on the developers. Instead, he gave the team the freedom to decide for themselves which elements of the original needed to be preserved and which could be changed. In his opinion, the staff needed to make Ocarina of Time their own game, building upon the ideas and conclusions they reached independently.
The producer admitted that at first he even expected more extensive changes. However, as the project progressed, he realized just how deeply the team cherished the original. Ultimately, the developers made fewer changes than Aonuma had initially anticipated.
I was impressed by how rich of a gaming experience they managed to create based on a game that first came out 28 years ago.
Aonuma also emphasized that he was surprised by the depth of the team’s respect for the original Ocarina of Time. According to him, the developers turned out to be far more attached to the source material than he could have imagined.
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