The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time at One Point Contained Portal Gameplay

Long before Valve ever released its highly successful puzzle game Portal, it sounds like those over at Nintendo were experimenting with similar gameplay ideas in what eventually became The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Although this functionality obviously never made it into the beloved action-adventure game, one developer who previously worked on the project revealed that it contained mechanics involving portals at one point in time.

According to Giles Goddard, who previously worked on Ocarina of Time all the way back in 1995, an early build of Nintendo's popular installment in the Legend of Zelda series contained this portal tech that Valve would make famous about a decade later. Speaking to MinnMax on a recent podcast, Goddard said that one of the earliest versions of Ocarina of Time--which was essentially just a tech demo--had portals in it where players could walk through one and come out on the other side of the map. Even more impressive (especially for the time) is that these portals would directly show players what was on the other side, much like you see in Portal.

Goddard went on to say that the reason this portal element of Ocarina of Time was scrapped was essentially because Nintendo didn't have the time to commit to fleshing it out even further. This is a pretty common practice when it comes to developing video games as many ideas that creators have never end up actually appearing in finished products.

While the thought of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time containing this portal feature sounds pretty nifty, it's hard to disagree with Nintendo's decision to cut it. After all, the finished product is widely considered to be one of the best games ever and still boasts the highest overall aggregate score in the history of Metacritic. So with that in mind, it's really hard to think that the game could have somehow improved if these portal mechanics were included.

Still, what do you think about this information related to Ocarina of Time finally coming to light all of these years later? Be sure to let me know your thoughts either down in the comments or hit me up on Twitter at @MooreMan12.