Designed by a creative team led by Eiji Aonuma, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and Shigeru Miyamoto, Majora's Mask was completed in less than two years.

The game introduces gameplay concepts revolving around a perpetually repeating three-day cycle and the use of various masks that transform Link into different forms.

As the player progresses through the game, Link learns to play numerous melodies on his ocarina, which allow him to control the flow of time, open hidden passages, or manipulate the environment.

Majora's Mask requires the Expansion Pak add-on for the Nintendo 64, which provides additional memory for more refined graphics and greater capacity in generating on-screen characters.

It received praise for its level design, story, and surrealist art direction, and has been noted for its darker tone and themes compared to other Nintendo titles.

Players may direct Link to perform basic actions such as walking, running, and context-based jumping using the analog stick, and must use items to navigate the environment.

These actions are aided by the "Z-targeting" system introduced in Ocarina of Time, wherein the player may lock the camera onto a particular character, object, or enemy and maintain it in view regardless of Link's motion through the environment.

[5]: 37  As a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, the first 3D title in the series, the game retains its predecessor's gameplay systems and control scheme while introducing new elements including character transformations and a three-day cycle.

Examples include the Postman's Hat, which grants Link access to items in mailboxes,[8] and Kafei's Mask, which initiates a long sidequest to locate a missing person.

[9] Majora's Mask revolves around a 72-hour cycle[5]: 10  (lasting about 54 minutes in real time), in which non-player characters and events follow a predictable schedule.

Although returning to the first day resets most quests and character interactions, Link retains weapons, equipment, masks, learned songs, and proof of dungeon completion.

[10][11] Termina is depicted as a darker, more unsettling version of Hyrule, in which landmarks are familiar but twisted and minor characters who previously appeared in Ocarina of Time are presented with individual stories of misfortune.

In the center of Termina, the people of Clock Town endlessly debate evacuating the city or continuing to prepare for the festival, the failure of which would be devastating to the economy.

[15][16][24] Early in development, this system originally rewound a week, but it was shorted as seven days was deemed too burdensome for players to remember and too complex to create in one year.

[30] Reflecting on the game's mature and melancholy tone, Aonuma felt that players of Ocarina of Time had grown up somewhat and could be motivated by different emotions like sadness and regret.

The game's signature sidequest, the Anju and Kafei wedding quest, was intended to highlight the contrast between a joyous occasion and the impending cataclysm.

[4] The use of the Expansion Pak allows for greater draw distances, more accurate dynamic lighting, more detailed texture mapping and animation, complex framebuffer effects such as motion blur, and more characters displayed on-screen.

[4] This expanded draw distance allows the player to see much farther and eliminates the need for the fog effect and "cardboard panorama" seen in Ocarina of Time, which were used to obscure distant areas.

[59] Reviewers did not take issue with the reuse of game engine, control mechanics, and visual assets from Ocarina of Time;[47][51][54][58] Jes Bickham of GamesRadar said they were already "nigh-on perfect after all" and the recycling allowed the development team to concentrate on delivering new content.

Matt Casamassina of IGN described the game as "The Empire Strikes Back of Nintendo 64", making an analogy to the film's status as a more mature and sophisticated sequel to Star Wars.

[55] Johnny Liu of GameRevolution wrote that it "takes a little longer to get into this Zelda", but also that "there are moments when the game really hits you with all its intricacies and mysteries, and that makes it all worthwhile".

Writing for Polygon, Danielle Riendeau observed that Ocarina of Time provided the foundations for Majora's Mask to become the "most innovative" game in the series on a structural level.

She commended the way it shifted the focus away from the "chosen hero" narrative common in the series to the myriad people that Link meets on his adventure, most of whom were given more compelling characterization than in Ocarina of Time.

[96] Tomas Franzese of Digital Trends saw Majora's Mask as the template for the way Tears of the Kingdom later retrofitted new mechanics onto the world of Breath of the Wild.

[107][108] Author and literary critic Gabe Durham of Boss Fight Books has also observed the game's influence on films like Source Code and Edge of Tomorrow.

[124] The campaign name is a reference to a similar fan-based movement, Operation Rainfall, set up to persuade Nintendo of America to localize a trio of role-playing games for the Wii.

Like Ocarina of Time 3D before it, the remake features improved character models and stereoscopic 3D graphics, along with altered boss battles, an additional fishing minigame, and compatibility with the New Nintendo 3DS, particularly its second analog stick used for camera control.

[133] A special edition New Nintendo 3DS XL model was launched alongside the game,[134] with the European release featuring a pin badge, double-sided poster, and steelbook case.

[136] Majora's Mask was the primary inspiration for the 2010s web serial Ben Drowned by Alexander D. Hall, which helped define the creepypasta genre of online storytelling.

[137] Victor Luckerson of The Ringer attributed part of Majora's Mask's enduring cult following to its ambiguous themes, malleable and receptive to reinterpretations like Ben Drowned.