The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
BACK TO GAMES
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Nintendo
1998

A revolutionary action-adventure game that set the standard for 3D gaming. Famous for its countless glitches and sequence breaks used in speedruns.

Nintendo 64GameCubeNintendo 3DSNintendo SwitchWiiWii U
BACK TO WIKI

Wrong Warp

Wrong Warp is one of the most famous glitches in Ocarina of Time speedrunning history. It allows players to manipulate blue warp panels to teleport to unintended locations, most notably skipping directly from the Deku Tree to the final battle sequence.

What is Wrong Warp?

Wrong Warp exploits how the game determines Link's spawn location when using blue warps (the teleportation panels that appear after defeating dungeon bosses). By manipulating specific memory values during the warp process, players can redirect Link to completely different areas of the game.

The most iconic application is the Ganondoor technique, which warps Link from Gohma's boss room straight to the Tower Collapse sequence—essentially skipping the entire game.


How It Works

The Spawning System

The game uses two critical memory values to determine where Link spawns:

VariablePurposeNormal Range
Base Entrance IndexPointer to an array of entry points into HyruleVaries by location
Scene Setup IndexResolves the array into one specific spawn location0-3 during normal play

The Exploit

When entering certain blue warps without having obtained their respective spiritual stone or medallion, two important variables are set:

  1. Next Base Entrance Index - Updates before calculating your spawn
  2. Next Cutscene Number - When set between 0xFFF0 and 0xFFFC, this sets the Scene Setup Index to values 4-12 (normally inaccessible)

By manipulating when and how you interact with the blue warp, you can overwrite the destination with an unintended entrance value while keeping the cutscene number, resulting in a "wrong warp."


Methods to Trigger Wrong Warps

Ganondoor (Door Wrong Warp)

The classic method used in Any% speedruns:

  1. Perform the Ocarina Items glitch to maintain control on the blue warp
  2. Open a door on the precise frame to overwrite the "next entrance" variable
  3. The game loads the Deku Tree base entrance (0x0252) but with cutscene value 0xFFF1
  4. This results in entrance 0x0257, which loads Inside the Tower Collapse

Death Wrong Warp

Similar to Ganondoor, but uses death instead of a door:

  1. Die on a specific frame while the blue warp activates
  2. Choose "Continue" when prompted
  3. The blue warp's count-up timer ticks after continue is selected
  4. The "next entrance" resets to the dungeon's main entrance base index

Farore's Wind Wrong Warp

Provides the most destination options:

  1. Set a Farore's Wind point somewhere in the game
  2. Use Farore's Wind just as you touch the blue warp edge
  3. This pulls up a menu that allows changing your entrance index
  4. Can warp to almost any entrance in the game

Trade Item Timer

  1. Allow a trade item timer to expire
  2. Time this precisely as the blue warp tries to start its cutscene
  3. The timer expiration interferes with the warp destination

Compatible Blue Warps

Wrong warps can be performed from these boss room blue warps:

  • Deku Tree (Gohma) - Most commonly used
  • Dodongo's Cavern (King Dodongo)
  • Inside Jabu Jabu's Belly (Barinade)
  • Fire Temple (Volvagia)

Avoiding Crashes

Wrong warps can crash if the cutscene pointer has an incorrect value from a previous cutscene. To prevent this:

  • Watch the cutscene that plays when entering Deku Tree for the first time
  • Pause in Link's house to reset the pointer
  • Ensure your last cutscene was of the correct type

Speedrun Applications

CategoryUse Case
Any%Skip from Deku Tree to Tower Collapse (game completion)
No Wrong WarpCategory specifically banning this technique
100%Various sequence breaks for optimization

See Also

  • Stale Reference Manipulation (SRM)
  • Arbitrary Code Execution (ACE)
  • Ocarina Items

Sources

Wrong Warp - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Wiki | GLITCH.LOL