Problem, as I see it, going all out on a remake takes as much time as making an original game.  Look how long FF7 Trilogy is taking.  

Agreed, it can't be lazy either, it will land in between.

Yeah but isn’t FF7 an outlier? Nobody is expecting them to turn OoT into a trilogy.

I didn’t dive too deep into looking it up but a quick google search says that each of the Resident Evil remakes took 3-4 years to develop.

TotK released in May 2023 so assuming the OoT remake started development roughly once ToTK wrapped up then that would give it 3-4 years of development as well.

edit: looks like MGS 3 remake also took about 4 years

IDK if I’d label a faithful remake as “lazy,” but yeah, I kinda agree with you there… Nintendo would need something with a little more oomphf. Though then again, 2020 leaned almost entirely on the momentum of AC:NH and 2025 leaned heavily on Summer blockbusters (MKWorld, DKBananza) to hold them over.

Depends on how transformative it is.

If it still feels like OoT, no matter how much they improve on actual level design, then I'd be fine with it. If they fundamentally change it (even if I don't really like original OoT as much as wider Zelda fanbase, due to regression in overall structure compared to 2D Zeldas), then it wouldn't be OoT anymore.

I don't mean making it a trilogy, as much as FF7 Remake is drastically different in battle system and story (whispers, etc).  

Good information, I am kind of shocked RE3 took four years..  I would have guessed way less, the game is like 6 hours.  damn near a year per hour, lol.  

I've had the opinion for years now that they should have four different lines of Zelda games.

1) Original 2D Zelda (Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Link Between Worlds, Oracle games, Echoes of Wisdom, etc.) Co-developed by Nintendo and GREZZO

2) Classic 3D Zelda (Ocarina of Time - Skyward Sword) - Co-developed by GREZZO and Tantalus with supervision and guidance from Nintendo

3) Modern Open World Zelda (Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom) Primarily Nintendo themselves w/ assistance from Monolith Soft and other partners

4) Spinoffs (Hyrule Warriors, Cadence of Hyrule, Link's Crossbow Training, etc.) Outsourced to 3rd parties.

I agree that they need to have branches of the other Zelda games to help keep the flow of games going in between those long, ever-growing, development cycles between the big Open World games. We're already coming up on three years after Tears of the Kingdom, and the next open world game in the lineup doesn't appear to be coming any time soon.

While I would still love an all-new classic 3D Zelda, if they're going to remake the old 3D Zeldas, then I'd be perfectly satisfied with that as well. And you're right, they can't just half-ass it or do a simple, by the numbers remake, they REALLY have to go big with it.

I think making a recreation of OoT as a mini BotW is the fastest and most sure way to get sales.

People love OoT, people love BotW, people will love an expanded version of OoT being BotW-like (some fans will hate but that's how it is, it already got a similar to original remake in the 3DS for those, tho).

The only problem is, how to make it feel like it's not just a better option going for BotW or TotK instead when someone decides to buy a Zelda on NS2?

Sure it'll have a great start regardless based on its recognition alone, but how can they keep selling it to new players rather than those 2 above?

If they figure it out they have an easy 10M seller on their hands, possibly 15M. And that is bound to help sell the system (even more if they do raise prices like Sony, they'll need to have reasons to make people still want to buy it).

If they do something else too samey like the 3DS had, or too big of a project that demanded a new engine, like the FF7 remake you just mentioned, then they are risking backfiring one way of another (1.only appeal to old fans or 2. having an actually new Zelda even more far away because of the scope of this project).

So I'm thinking it'll be an expanded OoT and a mini BotW in that engine.

Oh, interesting. So, is it fair to say that you value loyalty to the source material, even if that material is deficient in some way, above your own gaming predilections?

5 million range seller isn't going to move Switch 2 systems, 5 million software sales is not a big deal for Nintendo. Clubhouse Games on Switch 1 sold almost 5 million copies.

You need something that's going to sell 10++ million, probably more ideally 15 million+ if this is the big holiday title for 2026.

And to hit that kind of sales it has to be a very significant remaster/remake. I think they want to do someting big anyway, they've been sitting on that realistic Zelda demo since 2011, I don't think the Switch 1 was capable of running that in real time with lots of enemies on screen and larger environments, but Switch 2 easily can. Switch 2 is probably the hardware they were waiting for.

So that probably aligns as well. Switch 2 can run this with massive open world areas and more than just 2 characters on screen easily

I don't think Switch 1/Wii U could run this as a game, even with fixed camera angles and no gameplay you could see the demo was dropping below 30 fps and that's with a pretty empty environment.