While the official price for the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake hasn’t yet been announced, I already have a feeling I know how the conversation is going to go whenever Nintendo finally reveals it. If it costs $69.99, most people will probably accept it as the going rate for a major Switch 2 release. If it costs $79.99, people are going to complain, and honestly, I don’t blame them. Games are getting expensive, Nintendo isn’t exactly known for generous pricing, and the idea of paying that much for a remake of a Nintendo 64 game is naturally going to rub some players the wrong way.
More than likely, though, a lot of those same players are still going to buy it. That may not be the most flattering thing to admit, but it feels true. Ocarina of Time is one of those games where the conversation around price almost starts from a different place, because this isn’t just some random remake. This is a remake of Ocarina of Time we’re talking about here, one of the most important games ever made. And after GTA 6 officially pushed its own standard edition to $79.99, Zelda may now be staring at the same uncomfortable truth that some games are so big that their price may become a debate, but it won’t necessarily be a deal-breaker.
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Ocarina of Time Has the Same Advantage GTA 6 Already Has
One of the things I find somewhat hilarious about gaming discourse is the way everyone acts like they’re about to take a principled stand against expensive games until the expensive game is one they have waited years to play. To be fair, there are plenty of games that would be hurt badly by a higher price, and most new releases can’t afford to ask players for more money and then expect their name alone to carry them through the backlash. However, GTA 6 can, and that’s a big part of the whole point I’m trying to make here.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Easy (120s)Medium (90s)Hard (60s)
GTA 6 is the first new Grand Theft Auto game since GTA 5, and after more than a decade of waiting, it has become less of a normal release and more of an industry-wide appointment. People can criticize the price, and plenty of them will and have, but the idea that GTA 6 is suddenly going to struggle because players are annoyed at launch is hard to take seriously. The truth is, people are going to complain their way into the digital storefront, and they’ll continue complaining while they click “Add to Cart” and then enter the numbers on their nearly maxed out credit cards.
Ocarina of Time obviously doesn’t share the same audience or cultural footprint as GTA 6, but it nonetheless has a similar kind of price protection. Sure, it’s a popular Zelda game, but perhaps even more than that, it’s one of those games people frequently bring up when they talk about the medium itself. Even now, almost three decades later, Ocarina of Time still carries the reputation of being one of Nintendo’s—nay, gaming’s—defining achievements.
People can criticize the price, and plenty of them will and have, but the idea that GTA 6 is suddenly going to struggle because players are annoyed at launch is hard to take seriously.
Because of that, the Ocarina of Time remake doesn’t have to fight the same battle most remakes have to fight. A normal remake needs to convince players why it even exists, but Ocarina of Time already has that answer built into the title. Players have been imagining a full modern remake of this game for years, and now that it’s actually happening, the price is probably going to be a frustration before it’s ever a genuine obstacle—if it even becomes one.
I’m not saying people will love the price if it ends up being higher than expected because, the fact of the matter is, they won’t. If Nintendo asks for $79.99, there is going to be an immediate loud reaction, and the GTA 6 comparisons will basically write themselves. The weird part is that those comparisons may actually make Nintendo look less reckless than it otherwise would, because GTA 6 has already dragged the industry into the next stage of the premium price conversation.
Once one of the biggest games in history crosses that line, every other major release gets judged against it. Ocarina of Time is one of the few games Nintendo has that can stand anywhere near that conversation and not look completely absurd. Most remakes would get laughed out of the room, but Ocarina of Time can at least make the argument.
Zelda Fans Have Already Made Room for This Remake
The thing is, Ocarina of Time isn’t just relying on nostalgia as most remakes do. Nostalgia helps, of course, and Nintendo knows exactly how powerful it is. Still, this remake has a much stronger pull than the usual “remember this old game?” idea. For a lot of players, Ocarina of Time is the Zelda game they have wanted to see rebuilt for modern hardware since the moment Nintendo consoles became powerful enough to make that dream feel like it wasn’t reaching for the unreachable.
Older fans will undoubtedly want to see how Nintendo rebuilds one of their favorite games, and newer fans who came in through Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will want to finally experience the legendary Zelda game everyone keeps talking about without having to meet a 1998 release on its own terms. Parents who played it as kids will want to hand it to their own kids and say, “This is the one.”
For a lot of players, Ocarina of Time is the Zelda game they have wanted to see rebuilt for modern hardware since the moment Nintendo consoles became powerful enough to make that dream feel like it wasn’t reaching for the unreachable.
All of those reasons are emotional, and emotional reasons are exactly why price debates around games like this get so messy. People can know a game is expensive and still feel like they need to be there. They can dislike the precedent and still make the purchase. They can complain about Nintendo charging too much and still decide that Ocarina of Time is worth making an exception for.
Nintendo has a lot of games with strong names, but Ocarina of Time is different. A Twilight Princess remaster would sell. A Wind Waker remaster would sell. A brand-new Zelda game would obviously sell. But Ocarina of Time being remade from the ground up is something else entirely, because it feels like Nintendo touching one of the most protected pieces of its own history.
The Price Debate Probably Won’t Stop Ocarina of Time
The most interesting thing about the Ocarina of Time remake’s eventual price is that it may not change much in the end. A lower price would make people happier, sure, and a higher price would make things more annoying than anything else. Either way, this is still a full-blown remake of Ocarina of Time on Switch 2 almost 30 years after the original game’s release, and that sentence alone is probably enough to sell it.
Put the consoles in the correct order.
I expect plenty of players will say they’re going to wait for a sale, but Nintendo games aren’t exactly known for dropping in price quickly. Others will say they have already played Ocarina of Time enough times and therefore don’t need to buy it again. Maybe some of them will mean it. I just have a hard time believing that the broader Zelda audience is going to look at one of the most requested remakes Nintendo could possibly make and collectively decide the price is where the line gets drawn.
GTA 6 has the same kind of power, just on a much larger and louder scale. People can argue about whether $79.99 is too much for a standard edition, and they should. They can talk about what it means for the future of game prices, and they should do that too. But none of it changes the obvious reality that GTA 6 is going to be massive because it is, after all, GTA 6.
Ocarina of Time already feels like Nintendo’s version of that same idea. The remake doesn’t need to be defended like some risky experiment, and it doesn’t need to beg players to care, because the name has already done that work. So when Nintendo finally reveals the price, the reaction will probably be immediate. If it’s reasonable, fans will move on quickly. If it’s high, everyone will talk about it, and the GTA 6 comparison will be impossible to avoid. But after all the arguments, jokes, frustration, and think pieces, the same truth will still be sitting there: this is Ocarina of Time, and people are going to buy it.
- Released
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2026
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo
- Number of Players
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Single-player
