Ocarina of Time has been turned inside out by speedrunners who are still hungry to find new glitches that could improve their times. Yesterday, a new glitch was discovered that could make some major changes to speedrunning the game.
Last year, a glitch blew Ocarina of Time open by letting players summon an empty bottle out of nowhere. A glitch found yesterday by Exodus122 has the potential to dramatically shake things up once again. This new glitch, which doesn’t have a name yet, allows players to equip any item as both child or adult Link, even if you aren’t supposed to be able to equip them. This method also works in Majora’s Mask, which allows players to duplicate Zora eggs and reduce their time on one of the fetch quests. As of right now, the world record for any% sits at 17 minutes and nine seconds, and 100% at four hours and 15 minutes, but all that could change as players take advantage of what Exodus122 has found.
This new glitch opens up dozens of new possibilities that speedrunners are still discovering. Speedrunner ZFG1, who currently holds the record for speedrunning Ocarina of Time in the 100% category, who has been playing around with the glitch since yesterday, has detailed some of the ways that this could change runs. Amusingly, most equipped items will be invisible, and also turn Link partially invisible while he’s using them. For example, ZFG1 writes in their post, being able to equip the hammer as a child allows players to beat the fire temple as child Link. “This was possible before,” they write, “but required becoming adult first and going back to child, and involved a very long and complicated setup.” These new possibilities means that runners can experiment with new route changes, “especially 100%,” ZFG1 writes.
While the ultimate applications of this glitch aren’t yet known, suddenly the nearly 20 year old Ocarina of Time has been opened up for experimentation as if it were a brand new game. As a commenter wrote on reddit, “OoT is the gift that keeps on giving.”