Zelda: Ocarina of Time had portals before Portal Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Zelda: Ocarina of Time had portals before Portal Bit of a longshot. News by Ed Nightingale News reporter Updated on 2 Nov 2021 11 comments The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had portals, before Portal. British programmer Giles Goddard, who worked on a number of games in the 90s including Starfox 64 and 1080° Snowboarding, has shared footage of portals in an early build of the game. He had previously revealed their existence in an interview with MinnMax, but yesterday also shared actual footage in a tweet. Watch on YouTube pic.twitter.com/wAGkn4abwG- Giles Goddard (@giles) November 2, 2021 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings While it looks a little like the Forest Temple, Goddard clarified he simply asked an artist for some test data to use. In the MinnMax interview, Goddard (who was also responsible for the Spaceworld 1995 Zelda tech demo) worked on a separate tech demo to push the capabilities of the N64 console. "Recently I found an old directory of source code that I had backed up, and it was the first map of the N64 Zelda, just with Hyrule Castle," he said. "So I was doing all these experiments. "You had a portal where you could look through, go in and you'd be teleported to a different part of the map. You'd see through the door to a different part of the map, walk through it, then walk back through it, if you see what I mean. "It was very cool tech and I had it running and showed it to some guys at the office here and they said 'oh, you've got to put this on the internet', and I said 'well, I can't, really, it's not my property, it's Nintendo's." He continued: "It was R&D for the game, basically. It was, what could we do with the hardware on the N64? It was basically a demo of actual portals that you could see through to other parts of the map." Portal was released a decade later, but Goddard got there first. "When I saw Portal I thought 'oh, actually, I had that running on the N64, I should have released it then'," he joked. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More News Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 4 Atari will hold RollerCoaster Tycoon rights for another decade Ups and downs. 7 Lady Dimitrescu will be a tad smaller in Resident Evil Village's Mercenaries DLC Level the playing field. 1 Overwatch 2 suffers another DDoS attack and character roster bugs Mei Mei. 13 Latest Articles Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 4 Genshin Impact Path of Gleaming Jade dates, login event rewards Including other anniversary rewards and how to claim them. Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store