Nintendo launches Ocarina of Time remake to 96 Metascore amid review-bombing attempt

Nintendo surprised players by releasing the Ocarina of Time remake on November 5, 2026, for its Switch 2 console. Critics awarded it a 96 Metascore from 80 reviews, and none of those reviews were mixed or negative.

Reviewers also gave the remake a 95 on OpenCritic and praised it for faithfully recreating every element of the original game. They highlighted updated graphics with richly detailed settings, lifelike character movement, and improved lighting effects. The controls feel more responsive and intuitive, and dialogue and cultural nuances in the localization have been significantly improved.

Ocarina of Time arrived on the Nintendo 64 in 1998, bringing Z-targeting and an expansive open world. One outlet calls the original a milestone that influenced many games. It earned a 99 Metascore and is still the highest-rated game on the site nearly 30 years later, and many current gamers were not born when it first came out.

The remake is the highest-rated game of 2026, tying all-time entries such as Half-Life 2 and Tears of the Kingdom at 96. It ranks as the top-scored game since Baldur’s Gate 3 came out in 2023 and pairs its score with reviews four times as numerous as the 1998 original. The remake’s 96 sits one point below Breath of the Wild’s 97 from 2017, while GTA IV earned a 98 and GTA V scored a 97 on Metacritic.

The remake holds a 9.6 user rating on the website, the highest user rating there. The figure may fluctuate, and suspiciously low scores did not prevent the top ranking.

The game’s score page on Metacritic has drawn an influx of negative user reviews that sources call a review-bombing attempt. One outlet calls the situation a review-bombing effort, while another describes an apparent bombing campaign with suspiciously low scores. A removed Reddit post by Kikisilvania on the Zelda subreddit put the number of negative user reviews at 187.

Negative user reviews take aim at dialogue changes, character designs, oversimplified gameplay, the missing Master Quest mode, a lack of new content, too much reliance on Switch 2 remakes, and far-fetched generative AI accusations. Several negative reviews call the remake outdated and say positive reception comes from nostalgia worn through rose-tinted glasses. The phrase appears more than once across the negative reviews.

Some negative reviews say reviewers feel pressured to praise the remake like the original because Zelda is the year’s highest-rated game. Fans of Zelda sent in over 6,000 positive user reviews to push back against the negative posts, and some said they were explicitly fighting the bombing. Fans say the negative reviews are too few to make a dent, and the bombing attempt has not moved the user score.

One user argued that simply porting an existing work with nothing added does not deserve excessive praise. Metacritic can take down spammed submissions it believes are meant to lower ratings, and observers said at least 30–40 reviews had disappeared.

Some gamers say the remake looks better than any other current-gen handheld option. Players may wish the game had DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) upscaling, since shimmering shows up in Hyrule’s open areas.

The publisher released the remake without advance warning for the Nintendo Switch 2. Millions of present-day gamers will experience Ocarina of Time for the first time on Switch 2, and one outlet argues that remakes are bigger revisitations than remasters.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to release on November 19, 2026, and can compete for Game of the Year at The Game Awards. The GTA 6 review embargo lifts two weeks after November 4, leaving players to learn whether it can surpass the Zelda remake’s 96 Metascore.