Wednesday, September 9, 2026

Ocarina of Time Remake: Item Swapping

Young Link fighting Stalchildren at Hyrule Field during the night, Deku Sticks equipped to ZR

The Ocarina of Time remake will receive a number of bigger changes in its gameplay. You will now jump with the press of a button, which was a common request. After a roll you can now hold down the A-button to keep sprinting, similar to TUNIC, but without limited stamina.

You probably jump with the B button, while Y is used for the sword. It's not entirely clear yet what X is used for, but you will dash with it in water. And your main items are only used via ZR. That's right, from three different face buttons in the original game, this went down to a single shoulder button. You will be able to quickly swap what's on it via a Breath of the Wild-style quick menu:

"Just like recent games in the series, you can swap between items with a single button."

But you can still use a traditional item menu from what it seems. And to make things at least somewhat convenient, some items are toggled via the D-pad, first and foremost the ocarina on its left. The Japanese website also shows the Iron Boots set to down on the D-pad and the Lens of Truth (which now look more like Purah's goggles) to up. And they demonstrate how you can quickly toggle both the lens and the Hover Boots in a clip, which takes place inside the Shadow Temple. It's still unclear how you will swap between Iron and Hover Boots, however, because you will need to do this in the Shadow Temple as well...

Maybe you can hold down on the D-Pad to swap them, but this would still be awkward. But it's possibly also how Link will equip his mask as a child. If you look at the new item menu, you can see dedicated sections for both adult and young Link:

Deku Nut 5/20 - A nut variety that can be found all over Hyrule. When one is split open, it will release a flash that can stun monsters.

There don't seem to be slots for the boots or masks in here. But it looks like there is going to be a fifth Empty Bottle for you to obtain, hopefully with an interesting new side quest or challenge for it, like how it was done in Majora's Mask 3D.

Update: the equipment menu has special item slots for the D-pad up and down, two per direction. Those will likely be the two boots, the Lens of Truth, and your mask. But it's unclear whether there is going to be a quick way to switch between the two in the same category.

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