Earlier this week, we reported on a new discovery for F-Zero GX that was sitting under our noses for two decades. Now, we have a story about a new discovery in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time after almost 30 years (and just in time for the remake!). According to Zelda: OoT speedrunner ZFG, a “really cool new glitch” was just discovered in the perennial N64 classic that may have big implications for the future of the game’s speedrunning scene.
Answering a bunch of questions about this new glitch
This glitch works by having the actor tied to the hitbox disappear during the bottle cutscene, while the hitbox is still active, and the new bottled item takes the place of the now despawned actor. Whatever happens to be in… https://t.co/cx8yxbZxrW pic.twitter.com/qkrzkdSOax
— ZFG (@zfg111) October 12, 2026
I don’t know enough about the specific hit boxes or damage values of Ocarina of Time’s items, but this glitch supposedly works when Link uses a bottled item as the lingering hit box of an enemy is starting to disappear. The clip linked above shows child Link facing off against Ganondorf during his pre-Ganon transformation and defeating him by emptying bugs after deflecting his energy ball back at him. The glitch overwrites the damage value of items being used, and in this instance, skips the need for Light Arrows to damage Ganondorf. Reportedly, you can defeat Volvagia with the megaton hammer, too.
While admitting that “this sometimes needs specific setups,” ZFG notes that there are consistent ways to get this glitch working. One example is using Link’s magic spin attack and then dropping a fairy in a bottle, which triggers the glitch regularly. Surprisingly, the same glitch functions in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, though more tinkering is needed to figure out if it will have the same kind of impact on speedrunning. ZFG states that while this glitch likely won’t blow the floodgates down for every speedrunning category, it should help speed up the “No Wrong Warp” and even “Randomizer” brackets.
For me, the biggest thing worth celebrating here is that players are still discovering exploits from a nearly three decade-old game. It really goes to show you how dedicated fans can be to their favorite titles, extracting every last bit of water from a stone that many thought was dry. What would be really cool is if this glitch somehow worked in the upcoming remake, though Nintendo probably accounted for a lot of this while remaking things.
Check out more Zelda content
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
