SNL's GTA 6 and Zelda sketch lands with a thud for most gaming fans

Saturday Night Live's Season 52 took a swing at November's two biggest releases — GTA 6 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake — with a six-minute Weekend Update skit featuring live-action versions of Jason Duval and Link. The October 4 episode was hosted by Dakota Johnson, with Turnstile as musical guest and a surprise cameo from Taylor Swift.

Marcello Hernández played GTA 6's Jason and Mikey Day took on Link, with the bit revolving around the two arguing over whose game is better alongside Weekend Update hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che. Jost opened by calling the dual releases "the Barbenheimer of video games." The sketch leaned on car-stealing gags for Jason and puzzle-yelling for Link, who spent most of his screen time insisting his tunic is not a dress.

The two games are shaping up to be the defining releases of fall 2026 — GTA 6 being Rockstar's long-awaited follow-up after over a decade, and the Ocarina of Time remake carrying enormous nostalgia weight for a generation of Nintendo fans. SNL has dabbled in gaming references before, but a full sketch built around two simultaneous blockbuster releases is unusual enough that it clearly caught the gaming community's attention, even if the execution didn't.

Reception from gaming fans was largely negative. Critics online pointed out that the Zelda jokes — nerds, puzzles, Link's tunic — are the same ones circulating since 2000, and that Jason's costume amounted to little more than a tropical shirt and a bandage. Day's Link costume, however, drew genuine praise for its accuracy to the Ocarina of Time remake tunic, complete with elf ears and a convincing wig. "This sketch was pretty rough," one viewer wrote. "Basically all of the jokes here were ones I've already been hearing for like 20 years." A more charitable take noted the inherent awkwardness of parodying Jason specifically: "Confused how they are doing a parody of a character who we don't know that well yet."