The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Reveals Unseen Prototype Footage

By Logan Moore

Some never-before-seen footage from a prototype version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has been revealed over two decades after the game originally launched. Earlier this year, a former developer that worked at Nintendo named Giles Goddard revealed that the classic Zelda game at one point contained a mechanic centered around portals which were similar to what was seen in Valve's Portal series. At the time, Goddard didn't show fans what this actually looked like in practice, but as of this week, that has changed. 

In a recent clip shared on Twitter, Goddard showed off how this Portal-like mechanic in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time actually functioned. The clip in question was pulled from an early prototype iteration of Ocarina of Time that Goddard estimated was from 1996 or 1997. And while it's a bit hard to make out everything that is happening in the footage since it isn't directly being shown in-game, you can get an idea of how these portals would transport players to different parts of a given level. 

While it's quite cool to see this portal-style feature implemented here, it's even more bewildering that this tech demo of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time continues to exist in the first place. After all, Ocarina of Time is widely considered one of the best games of all-time, so for footage like this to be unearthed makes this video borderline gaming history. Goddard has previously revealed that he also worked on other early versions of Ocarina of Time, but it's unknown if any footage from those prototypes might continue to exist. Either way, it's extremely cool that Goddard has been able to show off this unused feature from Ocarina of Time roughly 25-years after it was created.

What do you think about this early footage from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time being unveiled so many years later? And would you have liked to have seen this portal mechanic implemented in the final game? Let me know either down in the comments or hit me up on Twitter at @MooreMan12.

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