Glitch hunters are video games’ most patient, dedicated soldiers, because how on earth are new tricks being discovered for a pair of games both old enough to rent a car? Earlier this week, Ocarina of Time glitch hunters discovered that if you attack a boulder and, at the exact moment the attack animation ends, you get Link to dump a bottle of water (or bugs), the boulder instantly blows up.
The glitch has already been catalogued by Zelda Speedruns, which has a technical breakdown of how it works. It involves overwriting damage flags and recategorizing damage sources to turn Link’s humble slingshot or sword into a Swiss Army arsenal. The really neat thing is that the glitch can be replicated in both Ocarina and Majora’s Mask. In Majora, you can use the glitch to reach the Goron Racetrack or access the Milk Ranch without the need for powder kegs. Link can also use the trick in his Deku Scrub form, substituting his bubble attack for a sword slash.
ムジュラでの岩破壊メモ
デクシャボン＋虫
回転斬り＋泉の水 pic.twitter.com/8B2BshiZZv— せーら姫 (@sera18171) October 11, 2026
The glitch can also do more than just blow up big rocks in Link’s way. The glitch hunters have applied the trick to defeat Volvagia without using the Megaton Hammer, to gain access to Ikana’s Castle without the mirror shield, and perhaps most significant of all, to defeat Gannondorf without light arrows.
It’ll be interesting to see how or even if speedrunners incorporate this trick into their runs and how significantly the trick changes established speedrunning routes. While the trick seems to work on the virtual console ports of Ocarina and Majora, meaning you can try this trick for yourself on the Switch, it unfortunately doesn’t seem to work in either of their 3DS reboots, and it’s unlikely to work for the forthcoming Switch 2 Ocarina remake as well.