Fans on 5ch’s “Hardware & Industry” (Geha) board are debating the design direction for the upcoming remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
The thread’s original poster pointed to the rumored Final Fantasy VII Remake, arriving around the same time, which rebuilt the entire overworld map and even implemented the airship — arguing that if Ocarina of Time’s remake just polishes the graphics while keeping the old “zone-to-zone” area transitions, that would be “half-assed.”
Pushback came fast: some cited past titles that forced their way into open-world design and flopped, while others argued that Ocarina’s charm comes precisely from its enclosed, “garden-style” (hako-niwa) dungeon structure. Opinions split right down the middle over whether going open world is even the right call.
1AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:20
Square Enix rebuilt the world map it had given up on for years for the FF7 Remake, and even went so far as to implement the airship.
If Square Enix is going that hard, and Ocarina of Time's remake ends up just polishing the graphics a bit while keeping the same old zone-to-zone area transitions, that's honestly half-assed.
Stuff like that shouldn't get a pass.
2AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:21
What happens if it goes open world?
Will that alone make it more fun?!
4AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:24
Going open world makes it more fun.
That's just an established fact these days.
If anything, it's the bare minimum for a modern game.
Anything that falls short of that bare minimum shouldn't even be released as a remake.
5AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:26
Re: #4
Getting suckered by that baseless argument
and carelessly slapping open world onto a series
has wiped out pretty much every one that tried it.
19AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:38
Re: #4
>Going open world makes it more fun
Dynasty Warriors 9 (aka Shin Sangoku Musou 8) says "come again?"
45AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:02
Re: #4
What about the FF you yourself brought up one post earlier?
6AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:27
Open world is just a hassle — nobody benefits from it and it's not even fun.
8AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:29
Re: #6
That's because it comes with a scenario and systems built around being open world from the ground up.
Force that onto something that wasn't designed for it and all you get is a joyless mess.
7AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:28
Why do I have to bow to some mediocre outside standard?
Back with A Link Between Worlds (Kamigami no Triforce 2), the answer was already given — you end up stuck building puzzles around dungeon-entrance item requirements and mural links, which makes for shallow puzzles and a more compact game overall.
Open world is boring.
12AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:31
Loading's way faster now, so there's really nothing wrong with sticking to a map-based structure, is there?
17AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:34
Re: #12
So if they just get rid of the zone transitions, that's enough to count as "open world"?!
13AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:32
Nobody's even bashing this one for "another remake, seriously?" The remake itself got a pass this time!
15AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:34
Re: #13
That's because it's already a confirmed losing platform. Honestly, people probably just don't care anymore.
20AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:38
When are people going to understand that slapping open world onto everything doesn't automatically make it fun?
23AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:40
Re: #20
Mario Kart World only moved 3,000 copies in its first week, remember?
And that's supposed to be the textbook example of failure.
26AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:43
Next they'll be saying Majora's Mask should go open world too lol
29AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:46
Re: #26
If anything, that game could be called the origin point of Zelda's whole open-world system.
34AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:49
If it basically turns into a different game, they'd just make a new entry instead of a remake — I'd bet this ends up being a graphics-only remake.
Though I really do want the dungeon layouts and puzzles changed, at least.
38AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:54
Re: #34
Hard to tell if this is aimless drift from a team that actually understands brand management, or reckless behavior from one that doesn't understand it at all.
It's a situation where you can tell success or failure before the thing even ships — so can they even judge what's okay to change, what shouldn't be touched, and what they changed with real intent?
40AnonymousSep 6, 2026 15:58
If they land on a good open-world idea, they'll just fold it into the next new mainline game.
I doubt the Ocarina of Time remake changes much of anything content-wise.
41AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:00
Re: #40
They might change the seasoning, but they're not touching the recipe itself.
Star Fox is exactly the series that's stuck to that philosophy the hardest.
47AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:03
Way too spooked by the Nintendo Direct.
54AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:08
Re: #47
Ah, so that's the setup for a big anticlimactic letdown later. Raising the bar on purpose.
53AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:07
What if they added new cutscenes?
57AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:08
Re: #53
If it's just adding more cutscenes, I'm all for it.
55AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:08
It's the opposite. A game that's fun precisely because it's a garden-style, enclosed design just turns bland and generic once you make it open world.
The mindset that "everything should just be open world" is outdated.
Do you know how many games have flopped because of that?
59AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:09
Re: #55
Third parties and Sony got played by that same argument over and over — that's exactly why they want to drag everyone else into the same mess.
60AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:11
Overseas markets just went through a console price hike — there's no way they'd ship a remake that's just a visual upgrade. Making that the centerpiece of the holiday lineup would be pure stupidity.
68AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:17
Forgot to tag the reply.
Re: #60
But this is Nintendo we're talking about — the same company that's recycled Star Fox 64 through Virtual Console and 3DS re-releases over and over, and would still smugly ship a "just improved the graphics" remake. If both titles are coming out this year, the projects probably kicked off around the same time, so I doubt they'd give a from-the-ground-up rebuild to only one of them.
64AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:14
Why not just keep the Ocarina of Time remake faithful to the original, and if they want to do open world, do it separately in the Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom style?
67AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:17
Re: #64
It's the overall story arc that's the issue there.
As for a Majora's Mask remake as the "Ocarina of Time expansion," though — since the original was already open-world-ish, that one I'm genuinely looking forward to.
70AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:22
Once it goes open world, you just know there'll be a hate thread about it every single day.
77AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:32
Re: #70
Either way, that's just how it always goes lol
72AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:27
Wasn't the original basically already a kind of open world too, in its own way? Somebody needs to just define the term already.
78AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:32
Re: #72
It's a garden-style (hako-niwa) game — you can't freely go anywhere, there are set routes, and the reachable area gradually expands, Metroidvania-style.
76AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:31
Re: #68
Momentum's already dropping because of the price hike, and if the remake's just a graphics change on top of that, it's basically throwing away the holiday season. If you want to play the original, you can already do that through the Switch Online expansion pack, so that covers it. Nintendo can do whatever it wants, but if it's just a graphics-only remake, I'm not buying it — and I'll mock it too.
79AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:32
Re: #76
What do you even think the holiday sales season is?
How was Nintendo's holiday lineup last year?
What about the year before that?
82AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:35
Re: #79
Without a headline title, sales volume's going to drop, right? There are probably a fair number of people who've already lost interest in buying a Switch 2 because of the price hike.
84AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:36
Re: #82
Behold my very own idea of the ultimate holiday lineup! (riffing on the classic internet meme format "my idea of the greatest ___")
83AnonymousSep 6, 2026 16:36
I mean, haven't Zelda fans themselves already gotten tired of Nintendo's loose brand of open world after Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom? Whether it's the Ocarina remake or any new entry going forward, there are probably a fair number of people who'd rather have a dense, old-school Zelda experience than another open world.
Background and key points of the debate
Released for the N64 in 1996, Ocarina of Time is widely credited with establishing the grammar of the 3D action-adventure genre. Its structure links dungeons together across an overworld map — innovative for its era, but classified today as a “garden-style” (hako-niwa) design. Nintendo, meanwhile, has already established its own brand of free-roaming open-world design with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and several posters in the thread expressed outright fatigue with that approach. It’s also worth noting that whether the remake will actually go open world is not confirmed — the thread is largely speculation and wishful thinking, drawing a comparison to the FF7 Remake’s restructuring. The real point of contention was the broader question of whether going open world is a prerequisite for quality: some pointed to commercial disappointments like Dynasty Warriors 9 to argue that “open world” doesn’t automatically mean “fun,” while others countered that keeping the old garden-style structure would make the remake look like a lazy cash-in. The two sides never really met in the middle.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware & Industry/Geha) thread “If the Ocarina of Time remake isn’t open world, it honestly deserves to get roasted.”
