Boxed copies of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Switch 2 have reportedly started turning up in buyers’ hands, five days before its 5 November release. Nintendeal, an account that tracks game retail, posted photos of stock arriving in stores and of a customer leaving with a pre-order.
The pictures show the case spine with gold lettering, and a cartridge that looks red. If the game boots without a mandatory update, early owners could post footage or spoilers well ahead of Nintendo’s date.
Notebookcheck covered the posts and pointed to earlier first-party Switch 2 games that went the same way. Screenshots and videos of Donkey Kong Bananza appeared days before its July 2025 launch. Nintendo’s store page still lists 5 November as the official date.
Whether a day-one update is required is unknown. If one is, early cartridges may not run the full game until it is released. Notebookcheck also notes that hackers have recently opened up parts of the Switch 2 and loaded games in emulators, but have not extracted the console’s master encryption keys, which limits mass piracy for now.
Nintendeal itself suggested spoilers would matter less here than for a new game, because the remake mostly keeps the story and layout of the N64 original while updating visuals and controls and adding voiced dialogue. Nintendo has not commented on the early copies.
