One of my most enduring memories of playing the original Ocarina of Time as a kid is being absolutely terrified of ReDeads as a kid. With The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake on Switch 2, Nintendo had an opportunity to make the zombie-like enemies even more terrifying – and I can't decide if I'm relieved or disappointed that the devs decided to tone it down.
"With this remake, the graphics are a lot improved," producer Hidemaro Fujibayashi tells GameSpot, "and so the ReDead – the sound, the graphics, and the movement – ended up being very, very scary. And the staff wanted to make this in service of making a good gameplay experience. But from our perspective, taking a step back, we felt like, let's remember the experience that we don't want to change, and taking that into consideration, maybe we've gone a step too far, so let's dial it back."
ReDeads are still plenty creepy in the remake – certainly the scariest they've appeared since the N64 games – but the audio changes alone make their presence a lot easier to bear. In the original game, they'd let out these horrible, low moans, which somehow got even more upsetting filtered through the console's low-fidelity sound processor.
Dead Hand might be the more infamous Ocarina of Time enemy these days, but the ReDeads were the ones that haunted my childhood nightmares. Any time I entered one of the areas where they lurk, my heart would be racing as I muted the TV so I wouldn't have to hear their horrible shrieks and moans.
As upsetting as it was at the time, I still look back fondly on overcoming that childhood fear, and some part of me is a little disappointed Nintendo pulled back from the horror for the remake. But if it saves a new generation of young Zelda players from a few sleepless nights, it's probably the right decision.
If you need help with the game's second most terrifying character, check out our guide to the Zelda Ocarina of Time Mask Shop
