2026 is already proving to be a very big year for The Legend of Zelda as a franchise, with the 40th anniversary set to pass in the next few months. Though celebrations haven’t begun in earnest just yet, we already know that there are plenty of exciting projects coming down the pipeline for fans to get excited about.
The movie adaptation is certainly one of the most exciting, and we should hear more about that in a dedicated Nintendo Direct later this year. Not only that, but we also finally got confirmation of the highly-anticipated Ocarina of Time remake, with a full launch for that also coming towards the back end of 2027.
While we wait for that, the game is back on an entirely unsuspected platform, though not everyone knows how to feel about it.
Over on Twitter/X, the user Kahris shared a video featuring gameplay of the unofficial, source-available PC port of Ocarina of Time, Ship of Harkinian, running natively on iOS and iPadOS. Pretty cool, but the game seems to be running thanks to OpenAI’s codex, and that hasn’t gone down well with everyone.
“A game that was already developed was re-developed using AI so you can spend even more time downloading it in a roundabout way to waste your time playing an old nostalgic game no kid under the age of 30 will care for,” one comment read.
While another added, “Dang. People don’t get it yet… what does the world like where you can just ask for any game/simulation you want?”
“What you’re seeing isn’t nostalgia. It’s a guy using an agent to bring a 1998 game to a platform where it never ran natively before. Now think about the software that pays your salary. It’s not protected. It’s just waiting for someone with a whim,” a third warned.
Others were a little more positive, with one saying, “Someone managed to run Ocarina of Time natively on iOS using OpenAI’s Codex. This has me impressed.”
As well as being an absolute nightmare from a legal perspective, the use of AI in any projects like this one is bound to make a bunch of people feel uncomfortable. Though its use here and there in individual passion projects isn’t necessarily too bad, the wider implications of AI doing these kinds of jobs just doesn’t bear thinking about in an industry that’s already laying people off in their thousands.
At the very least, we still have the Ocarina of Time Remake to look forward to, but projects like the one above could remain a concern for many for some time to come yet.
- Released
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November 21, 1998
- ESRB
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E10+ for Everyone 10+: Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Themes
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo
- Engine
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Zelda 64 Engine