Google just got a The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Easter egg that transports you back to the 1998 version of the search engine — complete with blue links for results.
The remake of the Nintendo 64 classic comes out this Thursday, November 5, but you can find the secret on Google now if you type “zelda” into the search bar and press enter. This makes the Master Sword appear in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
Click the Master Sword and it gets shoved into its pedestal, an audio effect plays, and the screen distorts to pull you through time. Now you’re back at the old, useful, minimalist Google that showed search results as a series of blue links for people to click on.
What you’re seeing is Google from 1998, the year the original Ocarina of Time launched. It was the year of the Saving Private Ryan movie, the rise of teen pop icons like Britney Spears and breakthrough television shows like Sex and the City. The Boy Is Mine by Brandy and Monica would have been blasting from the stereos of passing cars, kids would have been playing with Furbys, and everyone was rocking a Nokia. Ah, nostalgia. Google’s 1998 version even has the “I’m feeling lucky” option, which would just take you to a random search result.
As Nintendo has pulled back the curtain on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, we’ve begun to get a better understanding of how this Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive will look and feel to play. IGN has already got you covered with an extensive hands-on preview, as well as a roundup of all the changes we’ve noticed so far compared to the N64 masterpiece.
While you wait, check out a special episode of Nintendo Voice Chat where we dive deeper into our Zelda preview. Meanwhile, Eiji Aonuma, producer of the Zelda series at Nintendo, recently admitted some of the younger members of his team had never played the original game, but insisted that was very much a good thing for the development of the remake.
Kirk McKeand is a Contributor on IGN News. Find him on Twitter @MckKirk
