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There have been many potential Unreal Engine 5 reimaginings of classic games shared on YouTube over the years. However, I'd argue that few have achieved the level of fame that the fan developer Giuseppe Macula's (CryZENx) remake of the N64 title Ocarina of Time has.
Ever since development began on the project in 2015 (originally in Unreal Engine 4), the remake has frequently been in the news, with Macula constantly releasing new demos featuring high-definition recreations of Hylian locations for players to explore. Now, though, it seems the journey has finally come to an end, with Macula announcing that development on the project has "officially stopped," following the unveiling of Nintendo's own Ocarina of Time remake revealed for the Nintendo Switch 2 earlier this month.
The news was shared in a set of recent Patreon updates and wasn't, as you might expect, because of the developer receiving a cease-and-desist from Nintendo, but rather because Macula simply doesn't want to "step" on what the Zelda creator is doing.
On June 9th, Macula wrote, "Finally, after 20 years, we got a real remake with a high budget. Thank you all so much who was pushing my content for 10 years straight you [were] the best... I think I have made history with my Remake and I don't really want to step Nintendo on their way. Now the question will be what's going to be next?"
He listed a few potential projects, including Metroid Prime Hunters, Donkey Kong 64, Diddy Kong Racing, and Sonic Adventure 2, which could take its place and elaborated that the "best move now" would probably be to move forward on one of these other projects, as he is "sure Nintendo will do it this time the right way..."
Three days later, on June 13th, he confirmed to readers that the Ocarina of Time project was now officially dead and decided to poll his audience on what project they'd like to see him turn his attention to next, adding Twilight Princess, Minish Cap, MDK 1/2, and Turok 1, 2, and 3 to the list of games above.
He even suggested he could "work on many projects and switch [...] them" rather than focusing on a single game, stating, "I don't want to focus on one project only," and that he wants to hear what his audience thinks.
While Macula's videos haven't always been to everyone's taste, arguably helping to popularise the sarcastic "Nintendo, hire this man" meme, it's hard to criticise the amount of passion it takes to work on a project like this for so long, and I'd be lying if I said I haven't checked out the developer's progress at several points over the years, having interviewed him over email all the way back in 2016 while freelancing for Kotaku UK.
Nintendo's official remake is scheduled to release later this year, and from the little footage shown off so far seems to be going for a similar high-definition, realistic take on the character — somewhat matching Macula's videos. This has drawn mixed reactions online from commenters online.