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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is celebrated as a masterpiece, yet its development nearly took a different path. Shigeru Miyamoto revealed in an Iwata Asks session that the game was initially conceived as a hub-based experience, similar to Super Mario 64. The team considered using Ganon’s Castle as a central hub to access various levels, as they initially doubted the Nintendo 64 hardware could support a vast, open world.
The project shared an early engine with Super Mario 64, but required significant modifications over three years of development. Miyamoto noted that the team prioritized adapting Link to 3D environments, initially indifferent to whether the game took place in a single building. A remnant of this design persists in the Forest Temple, where the Phantom Ganon fight uses a circular room with paintings, mirroring the level-access mechanics of Mario 64.
The iconic Hyrule Field and Epona were nearly cut due to technical constraints. Developers feared that creating a large, traversable terrain for horses would overwhelm the system. However, after successfully demonstrating two horses running simultaneously, Miyamoto committed to the feature at Nintendo Space World, forcing the team to finalize the expansive landscape.
While the final game achieved a vast world, other early concepts, such as obtaining the Triforce, were ultimately excluded. Despite rumors and fan myths, the Triforce remains unobtainable in the original release.
