If you played through The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, you know how the early parts of the game go: get the three Spiritual Stones, grab the Ocarina of Time and open the Door of Time to grab the Master Sword.
Yet the truly curious gamers always wondered if there was a way to get through the Door of Time without the three stones. In fact, there is a sliver of the door of time that you can peak into, which certainly added to the curiosity.
Of course, it wasn’t until the speedrunning community got involved that they discovered you could indeed clip through the Door of Time as Child Link. This would become a staple technique in Any% and Glitchless Ocarina of Time speedruns.
The Door Of Time Skip
This skip was discovered by Mitjitsu in March 2008. It involves clipping out of bounds through that crack in the wall, and then jump-slashing at the right time to fall back inbounds and on the other side of the door.
The Door of Time skip setup done by lining up Link’s point of view on a certain angle, and then doing a backwards sidehop (which is done by angling the control stick to do a forward roll to the left and then immediately jumping backwards.) If the angle is correct, the backwards sidehop will clip Link through the door, in which you jump slash at the right time to leap back in bounds (if you do it too late, you’ll just fall into the abyss, and if you do it too early, you’ll clank against the door and fall into the abyss.)
Speedrunners have optimized this trick to get the angle correct from the moment they enter the Temple of Time. The optimization surrounding this trick has improved considerably since it was discovered over a decade ago.
Additionally, there are ways to do the Door of Time skip swordless. This is usually performed in speedruns where grabbing the Kokiri Sword happens later than usual.
It’s also worth noting that when you grab the Master Sword and change into Adult Link, the Door of Time remains closed. This made things complicated, until glitches were discovered to allow Adult Link to perform a Door of Time skip.
Why Do The Door Of Time Skip?
In the Any% speedruns, the Door of Time skip had a massive change in how the game was played; by cutting out the three dungeons you play through as Child Link, it reduced a ton of time in the earlier part of the runs, and was a huge step towards the insanely low times we now see in Any% OoT speedruns.
In general, the Door of Time skip gives players a lot of freedom in how they do their Any% or Glitchless runs; instead of being limited to the early part until all three stones were collected, it allowed players to travel to Adult Link’s portion of the game in a matter of minutes from the start of the run. And once players figured out how to get Adult Link through the Door of Time, the whole world was blown wide open for players to do whatever.
The Door of Time skip is an essential trick to learn in Zelda speedrunning, and also a crucial discovery in the game’s history. Finally that childhood curiosity paid off.