Google’s Zelda Ocarina of Time easter egg transports users back to 1998

Google has added a new easter egg to celebrate this week’s release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake.

The modern version of the Nintendo 64 classic is released this Thursday, November 5 and Google has added one of its trademark secrets for anyone searching for it.

By typing ‘zelda’ into the search bar on the Google homepage and running the search, the Master Sword will appear at the corner of the screen, hovering above its pedestal in the Temple of Time.

In the game, when adult Link puts the Master Sword into the pedestal he’s sent back through time and turns into young Link again.

If you click or tap the Master Sword when it appears on Google, the sword goes into the pedestal, you hear Link shouting and a screen effect appears, making it look like the user is travelling through time.

When the effect disappears, it reveals how Google looked back in 1998, when the original Nintendo 64 version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released.

The 1998 version of Google has simple text results, no AI assistant and the old “I’m feeling lucky” option, which used to take people to a random search result (when there were fewer websites around).

Sadly for some, the effect is limited to that one page of Zelda results and it’s not possible to continue browsing Google in this lo-fi way.

This is far from the first time Google has hidden an easter egg related to a classic video game. Some are still working on the site to this day.

By searching for ‘do a barrel roll’ (as in Star Fox 64), the entire page does a 360-degree turn, and typing ‘super mario bros’ brings up a Question Block which can be hit to make a coin noise.

Another effect which still exists appears if you type ‘the last of us’. This makes a red mushroom appear, and clicking it makes cordyceps-like fungus grow across the screen.

VGC went hands-on with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake two months ago, and came away confident that the game would make older players feel the same love they did for the original.

“It was only a couple of hours, but the quality of life improvements, the enormous visual overhaul, the fantastic music arrangements, the new content taking me by surprise (minor though it may be), and just the overall feel were enough to fire a perfectly gyro-aimed Hookshot right into my heart again,” we wrote.

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