Hey! Listen!
Googling “Zelda” today offers a glimpse of how search worked in 1998
“The flow of time is always cruel.”
Credit:
Credit:
The year was 1998. Britney Spears topped the charts, Bill Clinton was impeached, and a couple of little websites called Google and Ars Technica came online. It was also the year Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64. Google, which has come to dominate the Internet (Ars is still working on that), is celebrating the imminent release of the Ocarina of Time remaster by temporarily transporting us back to that storied year with a search Easter egg.
To access the Google time machine, you just have to search for either “Zelda” or “Ocarina of Time.” Google will load the standard 2026 results page, but you’ll see an animated Master Sword in the lower right corner. It appears on both mobile and desktop—just click the sword and enjoy the show.
After a little time-skipping animation and a Link shout (you know the one), you’ll swear it’s 1998 again. The search page is transformed into a simple list of blue links with retro Google branding. This is particularly apt given the time-shifting mechanics in Ocarina of Time.
Credit:
Classic Google used to provide a list of 10 links on each page, but there are only seven included in the Easter egg. This is a curated list of links rather than a real search. You get the official Nintendo Zelda page, Zelda on Wikipedia, Zelda games on Amazon, and a couple more.
You can go back to the modern version of Google’s search results at any time by clicking the sword again. Oh, you don’t want to do that? Sadly, this is a very limited experience. The Google of today is much different, and if you try to search for anything from the retro interface, you are immediately booted back to 2026 with all the AI, sponsored content, suggested searches, and social media links.
Credit:
The Ocarina of Time left its mark on a generation of gamers, and clearly, some of them went on to work at Google. The company’s intention is probably to leverage nostalgia to build hype for Nintendo’s big launch, but there’s also something a little sad about this. Google’s push into generative AI is transforming search in a way that many people don’t like. Seeing the simple, minimalist roots of Google search on display drives home how much the company’s core product has changed.
The Ocarina of Time has changed a lot, too. The remastered game has been completely re-created, with slick Switch 2 graphics, modern controls for movement and camera, numerous quality-of-life improvements, and more. The game is available for preorder now at $60 for digital and $70 for physical. It launches on November 5 for Nintendo Switch 2.
