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Ocarina of Time is back: is it still the greatest Zelda?

28 October 2026 · Games

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Nintendo's remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time comes out on Thursday 5 November, only on Nintendo Switch 2, in the year the series turns 40. It is the second time the game has been rebuilt: the first was the Nintendo 3DS version in 2011. A new Ocarina of Time is the right moment for the oldest argument in the series: is it still the greatest Zelda, or did Breath of the Wild take the crown? The box above shows how the world splits today, and the answer could not be closer.

Ocarina of Time came out on the Nintendo 64 in November 1998 and showed how an adventure could work in three dimensions. Its lock-on targeting, which let the player circle an enemy and keep the camera steady, was copied by action games for years. It also gave the series its best-known moments: the first ride across Hyrule Field, Link growing up seven years in a single step, the Water Temple that every player remembers for the wrong reasons, and a soundtrack played on the ocarina itself. For more than twenty years it was the game at the top of almost every "greatest of all time" list.

Breath of the Wild is the game that finally challenged it. It launched with the Nintendo Switch in March 2017 and threw away the rules Ocarina of Time had set: no fixed order of dungeons, a world you can climb from almost any side, and puzzles with more than one answer. It won Game of the Year at The Game Awards that year, and its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, built on the same world in 2023 and let players build their own machines.

In the world ranking of the best video games of all time, Breath of the Wild is 7th and Ocarina of Time is 8th, side by side. Head to head, the world gives them 50% each. Against its own sequel, Ocarina of Time does much better: it wins 63% against Tears of the Kingdom, and 70% against Majora's Mask, the darker follow-up from 2000. Against Super Mario 64, the other game that taught the world to play in 3D, it takes 59%.

So the vote comes down to what you value. Ocarina of Time is the blueprint, the game that defined what a 3D adventure is. Breath of the Wild is the reinvention, the game that asked what a Zelda would look like with the walls taken down. Pick your side above, then try the original Legend of Zelda from 1986 against either of them, and see where your choices land in the Games Top 100, ranked by everyone.

Vote: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time vs The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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