Eiji Aonuma raised an ocarina and played Epona’s song. Note for note, Link repeated the melody on screen.
That moment shows off the main gimmick of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake for Nintendo Switch 2. A real ocarina that you hold in your hands connects straight to the game, and Link plays back whatever notes you blow into it.
The series producer chose the demo song well. Epona’s song is the short melody that summons Link’s loyal horse, and if you spent time on Lon Lon Ranch in the late ’90s, you can probably still hum it.
No flute required
You won’t have to learn an instrument to play. Nintendo is keeping the standard method, where you enter notes with dedicated controller buttons.
There’s also a third method, which is a bit goofier and a bit more charming. Switch 2 controllers have a built-in microphone, and Nintendo said you’ll be able to hum notes into it to get the same result. (Expect complaints from anyone you live with.)
The remake already gives Link and Zelda’s classic Nintendo 64 adventure a striking new look, along with several quality of life improvements. Still, the two biggest features Nintendo showed aren’t inside the game at all. One is the ocarina. The other runs on your phone.
Zelda Notes returns with 11 options
Maybe you ignored the Zelda Notes feature in the Nintendo Switch app back in 2025, when it launched for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo has now given you a fresh reason to install it. The Ocarina of Time version will have 11 different options, though Nintendo only went over a few of them.
Today’s Record will feel the most familiar. It lists your accomplishments in chronological order and shows a screenshot of the moment you earned each one, a lot like achievements made just for Zelda. It also keeps a running list of your stats. Nintendo never scrolled to the end of that list during the demo, so what you saw probably isn’t everything the game tracks.
Next is a photo hunt. Zelda Notes gives you a wide range of photos showing in-game locations that you need to track down. Some are easy-to-spot places, and others are very obscure, down to particular rock formations. Finding a location earns you points, and you can spend those points on ocarina scores to play in the game.
It’s a clever way to reward exploration and get players looking at the small details Nintendo built into the remake. You can also change the difficulty: press a button and you’ll get a hint about where to search.
Expect a rickroll in Hyrule
Another option is a digital version of the blue instrument itself that you can play around with on your phone. It has guided playback for a full song or just the opening of a score, and it shows you which notes to play and how long to hold each one to get a certain sound.
Even better, you can record your own songs and share them with other players using QR codes. Odds are someone will send you a Rick Astley cover within a week of launch, so be ready.
The quiz is likely to take over your mornings. Each question comes with a picture and four possible answers, and you have 10 seconds to respond. Nintendo showed two examples: “Who does this house belong to?” and “Which plant family do Bomb Flowers belong to?”
The quiz has 2,000 questions in total, and you can play it once a day. Another attempt costs 20 Rupees. If you get enough answers right in a row, your “Egg Level” and “Cucco Level” go up.
The six options Nintendo skipped
Several options appeared briefly during the Direct with no explanation: Map, Hall of Fallen Foes, Global Play Data, Photo Studio, Threads of Time and amiibo. Some of these are easy to guess from the name. The others will stay unclear until Nintendo shares more details.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time launches on Nintendo Switch 2 on Nov. 5 with a complete graphical overhaul. That gives you roughly a month to relearn Epona’s song.