We have our first word from Nintendo on how The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is doing on Switch 2, just one day after launch, but the company isn't sharing any numbers yet. At its investor Q&A on November 6th, President Shuntaro Furukawa said the remake is off to a very good start! As of Friday, Metacritic also has the Switch 2 version at 96, which is first on its list of 2026 releases.
Nintendo has only posted the Q&A summary in Japanese so far (the English version isn't up yet), so this is my own translation: "It has only just gone on sale, so we are not at a stage where we can talk about specific numbers, but The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is also off to a very good start, so we believe we can head into the coming holiday season in a good position." Nintendo's summary was also edited in places for readability.
That came up in an answer about whether Switch 2 sales have cooled since the price increases, and whether Nintendo can still hit its target of 16.5 million units this fiscal year. Furukawa said the console has passed 25 million units and that the Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition hardware is selling well (we covered Nintendo underestimating demand for that console last month). He also said the next few weeks of sales will be very important. There's no public sales data for the game yet, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
The remake launched on November 5th as a Switch 2 exclusive, and the physical edition is on Amazon if you're still looking for a copy.
And critics LOVE it!
That 96 comes from 86 positive reviews, zero mixed and zero negative. On the 2026 list, it's ahead of Sektori and Resident Evil 2: Deluxe Edition at 93.
The original still beats it. On Metacritic, the N64 game holds a 99 and the 2011 3DS version a 94.
The complaint you've probably seen is that this remake is "safe," and yes, that word really is in the reviews. NPR's James Perkins Mastromarino put "safe" in his headline and wrote, "Where once it innovated, now it represents the safest of safe bets." Nintendo Life's Ollie Reynolds wrote, "That said, it is a very safe remake," and called the missing Master Quest "a real bummer." Destructoid's Scott Duwe expects "many will probably feel like Nintendo played it a bit too safe this time around."
Game Informer's Kyle Hilliard never uses the word, and calls this only "debatably" a problem, but he does write, "It all looks new, but doesn't feel particularly new." Gameliner, in the excerpt on Metacritic, says "its faithfulness to the original also means that the adventure rarely manages to surprise."
So what scores did those same critics give it?
Nintendo Life gave it a 9, Game Informer a 9.25, and Destructoid and Gameliner both gave it a perfect score! NPR's review has no score at all, but its headline still calls the game "superb."
Other critics looked at that same faithfulness and came down in its favor. Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio says, "What I appreciate most of all is Nintendo's restraint." VGC's Andy Robinson gave it five stars and, after imagining a bigger Hyrule Field and dungeons, said almost the same thing: "I respect the development team's restraint."
Some of the complaints actually go the other way, aimed at the things Nintendo DID change. NPR said the rewrites and other tweaks "risk eroding the game's character." Eurogamer's Christian Donlan, in a five-star review, wrote about the late-game Gerudo areas, "It's pleasant to look at, but it sometimes doesn't look specifically like Zelda anymore." And RPG Site, which gave the game an 8, was upset that there's only a single save slot and found the bosses far less of a challenge.
Metacritic's user score was at around 9.7 from more than 600 ratings on Friday, so players seem pretty happy with what they got!
What do you think? Did you want a faithful remake of Ocarina of Time? Are you playing it this weekend?
Sound off in the comments below!
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