Introducing Four Swords Week: A Celebration of Zelda’s Multiplayer Legacy on Four Swords Adventures’ 20th Birthday

We celebrate many anniversaries here at Zelda Dungeon. When you cover a longstanding game series like The Legend of Zelda, with over 20 games under its belt, it makes sense that there will always be a special date to mark the calendar by and always a prestigious title to look back on. For example, we honored Ocarina of Time with a retrospective staff feature on its 25th anniversary last November, we remembered A Link Between Worlds with a special editorial on its tenth anniversary last December, and we have a few things in store for Tears of the Kingdom‘s first anniversary this upcoming May.

Every anniversary is a special occasion when it comes to Zelda, for sure. But when a game in the series turns 20, the Zelda Dungeon staff likes to do something extra special. Just as we’ve done for games like Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and The Wind Waker, Zelda Dungeon will be devoting an entire week to a Zelda game turning 20 years old this month. But unlike our past themed weeks, we’re actually using this anniversary to celebrate an entire family of Zelda games — a sub-series, if you will.

Let’s cut to the chase: Four Swords Adventures is turning 20 this week! Releasing on March 18th, 2004 in Japan (before coming to North America the following June), this GameCube title proved once and for all that multiplayer had a place in the mainline Zelda series. Building on a foundation set by its 2002 Game Boy Advance predecessor, and addressing many of its flaws as well, Four Swords Adventures struck just the right balance between clever gameplay design, charming audio-visual presentation, and an emphasis on fun. And despite its practical unavailability these days, this game continues to charm newcomers lucky enough to get their hands on it, as evidenced by the annual Zelda Dungeon Marathon.

If you’ve been keeping up with our themed weeks over the years, you may have noticed that we skipped the 20th anniversary of the original Four Swords in 2022. Well, we decided to put off the festivities until now so that we could celebrate not only Four Swords, not only Four Swords Adventures, but the entire Four Swords family of games and the media surrounding it this year. So, for the next seven days, your pals at Zelda Dungeon will be celebrating Four Swords Week, where we’ll be looking back at all things Four Sword and the multiplayer legacy of Zelda overall.

 

So, what can you expect from Four Swords Week?

  • Multiple editorials by members of our staff, each one focusing on a different aspect of the Four Swords legacy. Expect everything from musical breakdowns, personal anecdotes, and in-depth analyses. This will be a great way to get to know the awesome members of the ZD team!
  • Four Swords-themed Daily Debates. Our writers have been hard at work crafting intriguing Four Swords-focused Daily Debate topics. Make your opinion known on topics like manga adaptations, Zelda multiplayer, and future Four Swords titles every day this week!
  • Four Swords-themed weekly features. Fans of our weekly features like the Zelda Cast will be happy to know that Four Swords will be the focus there as well.
  • Four Swords-based content on social media. Our dedicated social media team has plans for Four Swords Week too! Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok for Four Swords-themed posts, polls, and more!
  • Musical March Madness is still happening! Four Swords Adventures‘ 20th birthday just so happened to land right in the middle of March. So, rather than forgo our annual tradition of Musical March Madness, we’ve decided to run both features concurrently. Be sure to vote in our daily MMM polls right here!
  • Continued Zelda and Nintendo coverage. Just because we’re hosting a special themed week doesn’t mean we’ll stop bringing you all the latest Zelda news. Everything between the editorials and features will be business as usual.

Four Swords Week will run from March 18th to March 25th. The Zelda Dungeon team has worked really hard to make Four Swords Week something special. I hope you all enjoy the festivities as much as we’ve enjoyed putting them all together.

Be sure to share about your favorite Four Swords experiences in the comments all week long!

Featured Image created by Zelda Dungeon Art Director Heather Beard.

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