Is the dream of having a remake of Zelda:Ocarina Of Time on PC totally impossible ? Thread

Hello.

Dear IndieDB community, as I'm not currently working in the video games industry, I do not have the sufficient knowledge of the pipeline and constraints to answer my own question.

As a lot of retro gaming adepts, I'm dreaming about playing to a remake of Zelda:OOT on PC, with modern graphics and game engine, such as UE4.
So, my question is : do you think this is technically possible to achieve a remake of this game with a small crew ? I mean a good quality remake, with professional graphic quality and gameplay.

For the VFX industry, I can say "Yes, it is possible to have professional VFX on an independent film", but I have no idea about the Video Game industry
How many people would it need to make the entire game in something like.. 2 years ? 10, 30... 50 people ? (here I'm talking about professional crew who would work evenings and weekends only).
What about the licence ? Do you think this is possible to release the game ? If not, let's suppose the game is free, is possible to release it ?

Thanks in advance to people who will enlighten me
I know this might be a really large topic, but keep it simple

Regards, Remy.

Edited by: Maien_

It depends what you mean and what your standards are.

First, the licencing part. I'm no law man, but as far as I know, unless you can get permission from Nintendo (very very unlikely) then charging money for it would be illegal. However, free games and mods get released often, as they are usually defined as fan art. That said, some games, like a fan made Halo RTS, were shut down.

As with VFX/graphics, it depends what you mean by "professional". There are AAA games out there that look like arse, and indies that look great. Games like Dust, Overgrowth, Natural Selection 2 and Insterstella Marines are impressive graphically. The time frame is also an issue that varies wildly. Leon Spymaps (1 guy) has made multiple full size FPS campaigns in the time it takes Valve (a AAA studio) to make a mini campaign.

Possible, yes, feasable, that's more up in the air. There are so many factors I can't reasonably give you an estimate, even if I was more experienced.

The question I'd ask is why? OoT has had HD ports in the past, and I'm not sure the cartoonish fantasy graphics would really benefit from modern shaders and the like. It's not like Half Life which had a realistic style, so modern updates like Black Mesa have a huge jump in graphics. Instead, it would likely be more like the jump between Mario 64 to Mario Galaxy.

SabreXT wrote: Instead, it would likely be more like the jump between Mario 64 to Mario Galaxy.

Exactly what I was thinking, and in that regard it already got done with Windwaker; okay so the graphical style isn't the same, but neither is Mario 64 to Galaxy.

Thank you everyone for discussing about that.
I heard about the Skyrim mod, and already took a look at it, but it was really different from what I had in my mind. If I understood well, the project was aborted, too many work to do.

I guess few geniuses could do a "professional" port on PC (by professional, I mean not over bugged, not necessarily looking fancy but not ugly)

About the "why", it's kinda dream. I have a lot of friend who left consoles few years ago and now play only on PC (as I do). And buying consoles just to play few licenses (as Mario/Zelda/Metroid/Pokemon , etc on Nintendo) is not something we like.
Those games are the ones I enjoyed the most since I'm playing video games, and I'm sad there are not any port for PC.
So I was wondering why nobody already did it, (not talking about Emuls), it would give eternal existence to these games (we still can play Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Quake III on PC for instance).

Maybe my thoughts are just stupid, this is why I was asking all these questions.
I'm a very curious person, and, as artists usually are, I'm a dreamer.

Thanks again

Under the careful sight of nationwide trainer Joachim Loew Bayern amazed with a product new strategic version. After the failing of left-back Bob Alaba, who could not acquire because of a ripped muscular in the hip muscular tissue, Guardiola put on a protecting returning three with Jerome Boateng, Javi Martnez and Dante. BVB came before 76 197 viewers using this kind of shift originally not deal. The Bavarians provided within the the multiple of everlasting competing, that has been transmitted in 189 nations, like the audio of and would also be able to easily take the cause.

technically possible
Other examples from the realm of technical possibilities: winning a lotto without buying ticket, becoming president of earth after apocalypse, curing cancer using magnets, pyramids really docks for space ships.

It's technically possible for you, after putting some 10k hours into developing the needed skills and execute them, to make it on your own. But your best bet is that the enthusiasts you find put in maybe 80 hours at best of barely-productive work before calling it quits. Most of it is bragging on social media, browsing web for 'references,' and trying to gain more influence over the creative control.

Use an emulator.

If a Nintendo title would somehow make it to the PC without their consent it would be shut down faster than you can say "Mario". There is a reason these exclusive titles exist and even years after, they are still the company's bread and butter. The reason we don't get these games on PC is a reason to buy a console, or to buy the next console, because you played the last game of the series, before.

I saw some footage from a development for a Link game, which had a (somewhat) realistic version of Link and realistically textured environments. And to my surprise it didn't look shit and was still recognizable as Zelda. So I see how a remake could really create a new kind of game (kinda like what happened when Resident Evil was remade for the Game Cube). It doesn't have to become realistic in full, but it could still find a stylistic solution that is kind of a stylized realism, but not quite as cartoony as the original. That would make it interesting for a team to work on the game, because they can actually create something. The amount of manhours you need to sink into a game to get a somewhat stable prototype and enjoyable game is truly insane. You don't want to waste it on making a remake of a game that was good the way it is. I'd say Nintendo might do something of the kind with Link, maybe change his persona a bit towards stylized realism. It would be a gamble though and not all fans would agree. So they stick with what they know works for them and that is, to this day:
no mods or remakes of Nintendo games without Cease and Desist from their lawgroup. No remakes that change or re-create a persona from one of their previous games. Nintendo's game seems to be to keep things mostly the way they are (from a visual standpoint), but to work on the world and game mechanics, trying to introduce new features. It's kinda the family provider among the console developers.