Google’s Ocarina Of Time Easter Egg Is A Timely Reminder Of When The Internet Was Good

Google, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

In anticipation of the upcoming release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake, releasing this Thursday, Google has added one of its fun little easter eggs to its search page.

When searching for “Zelda” on Google, a Master Sword appears hovering above the plinth at the Temple of Time in the bottom right corner of the screen. When you click on it, much like in the original 1998 game, you’ll plunge the Master Sword back into the pedestal and go back in time! Whereas in the game, you would be turning back into Child Link, for this easter egg, it reverts Google’s search results page back to how it would have looked back in 1998 (the year Google was also launched).

While this is a fun easter egg, it also interestingly highlights how much Google has changed over the last 28 years. The colours are still there, but there are no tabs for Images or Videos, or most of what you’ve come to expect from the search engine. One of the key differences is the lack of an AI overview, which is worth mentioning given that just last week Alphabet Inc. (the parent company of Google) shares dropped 13%, with the company making a statement that their AI Mode of Google Search “were threatening profits at its core advertising business.“

As one of the main proponents behind AI adoption, it’s quite ironic to see Google highlight just how easy and simple their platform used to be, especially as we have seen similar stories of AI hampering discoverability of new games during Steam Next Fest and the slew of AI copycats popping up on itch.io.

The number of game pages being created per day has doubled in the past 2 months pic.twitter.com/SLY0bGq0BC
— itch.io (@itchio) November 1, 2026

On tapping the Master Sword again, you’ll be returned to the present version of Google with the spectre of its AI Mode hovering in the background, much like the shadow of Ganondorf’s castle looms over Hyrule. It remains to be seen if anyone at Google has picked up any Light Arrows to deal with this menace.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake releases on Thursday, November 5th, exclusively on Nintendo Switch 2.

Have you tried the Ocarina of Time easter egg on Google? Will you be picking up the remake later this week? Let us know in the comments below, and join the Gamer Social Club Discord to chat about your favourite games, play in community game nights, take part in giveaways, and more!