Ocarina of Time remake speedrunners are already breaking it
Speedrunners are already breaking Ocarina of Time's Switch 2 remake, with glitches that launch Link into the sky and skip big chunks of the game.
09th Nov 2026 16:45
Image via Nintendo
Ocarina of Time remake speedrunners are already breaking it
Speedrunners are already breaking Ocarina of Time's Switch 2 remake, with glitches that launch Link into the sky and skip big chunks of the game.
09th Nov 2026 16:45
Image via Nintendo
Ocarina of Time has only been out on Switch 2 since November 5, and speedrunners have already found a handful of ways to bend the remake's shiny new physics until Link ends up somewhere he really shouldn't be.
As spotted by Nintendo Life, Kotaku and Dork, the glitch hunters were hard at work within hours of launch, and Nintendo Life reports that runner gymnast89 rolled the credits in around four and a half hours the day after release, which is quicker than most of us managed to leave Kokiri Forest.
Link has learned to fly (sort of)
The big trick right now is a glitch that fires Link high into the sky, letting him skip past chunks of puzzles that were supposed to send him the long way round. According to Nintendo Life, well-known Zelda speedrunner ZFG was seemingly the first to find it, and it relies on careful positioning around the game's Magic Bean flowers with the camera at just the right angle.
Other runners have found similar launches in different places, too. Kotaku points to a clip from Vespher showing that stepping into an open chest at a precise angle bounces Link up like a trampoline (dropping a bomb inside apparently helps), while ORCinfo reported that flicking between items in mid-air lets Link keep floating and jumping, adding that it "is gonna break speedruns".
Dork, meanwhile, has rounded up a trick called actor jumping, which turns the remake's brand-new jump button against it. You stand on a movable object such as a chest or a tombstone, fire an aimable item like the Hookshot, press the lock-on button (ZL by default) before the animation finishes and jump the moment it ends, which sends Link far higher than the developers clearly intended.
There's smaller stuff as well, as Nintendo Life highlights a Reddit strat from u/Pomps8a that interrupts the end of a roll with an attack to get moving again a fraction quicker, which might not look elegant but is exactly the kind of thing speedrunners will happily grind out for a few milliseconds.
Skipping ahead scrambles the cutscenes
All this sequence breaking comes at a cost to Link's dignity, mind. Both Kotaku and Nintendo Life report that triggering adult Link's cutscenes while you're still young Link (or the other way round) briefly scrambles his textures, leaving the Hero of Time looking like a melted action figure, and Kotaku says ZFG has also managed to beat the Shadow Temple as young Link, though there's still one roadblock before that becomes useful in an actual run.
It's still early days, and as Kotaku points out, a glitch only really matters to speedrunners if it makes runs faster. Nintendo hadn't patched any of this at the time of Dork's report, and the remake has reportedly closed off several of the classic N64 exploits, so the community has plenty of fresh routing to work out over the coming weeks.
If you'd rather enjoy Hyrule at a more relaxed pace, our round-up of the Ocarina of Time remake reviews explains why it's the highest-rated game of 2026, and if you fancy seeing how wild things got on the original, this speedrunning trick that turned Ocarina of Time into Breath of the Wild is still a treat. Well, it's a good job the Master Sword doesn't come with a speed limit.
About The Author
Jake Bannister
Jake is GGRecon's Co-Founder and Operations Director. You'll find him covering our word game brain teasers, as well as sports games such as Football Manager and EA FC. He's also that teammate on your Rocket League team spamming "Wow!".
