I first discovered Zelda Universe in 2009 when I was desperately searching for any news regarding the up-and-coming DS Zelda game, Spirit Tracks. I found a website that had posted the most recent commercial and a short article describing it. Before that point, it never occurred to me that there could be a website committed solely to covering my favorite game franchise. After that, I added Zelda Universe to my bookmark bar and it became one of the websites I visited daily.
In 2014, I was surprised to see that Zelda Universe was looking for new members to join its news team. As someone who loves writing and loves anything Zelda, it seemed like a win-win to me. I applied, fully expecting to be overlooked, and was delighted to see a response in my email offering me a position. As someone who wanted to be a novelist, getting myself to write is not always an easy thing. Being able to write articles on a subject that I loved helped give me the motivation to practice writing and develop my abilities.
My fondest memory from my days as a news reporter was everyone live-reacting to E3. We’d have the livestream open in one window and Slack open in another. Everyone on the team was passionate about not just Zelda but video games in general. We were excited together to see games that were rumored about suddenly being given a release date, cheering together for trailers that made us hyped, and being critical of others. We were able to have a gaming community before Discord was a thing; I had friends I could talk to and nerd out with about my favorite game franchise. We added each other as friends on the Wii U and 3DS and my boyfriend at the time was jealous as he didn’t have nearly as many people to play games with!
I was so grateful to the editors who took the time to look over my articles and make sure everything was ready to go before it was published. Not only that, but they took the time to teach me and help me develop my writing skills. Specifically, I remember Amanda teaching me the inverted pyramid technique, where the most important and exciting information is covered first, then the important details, then other information. When teaching me, Amanda used examples that involved her favorite ships in Zelda.
I was so proud of Zelda Universe when Nintendo of America accepted our request for Reggie Fils-Aime to do the ALS ice bucket challenge and mentioned Zelda Universe in its Twitter response to us.
I showed my friends and family pointing to our username like, “Yeah that’s them, that’s my team!”
I was a news reporter during a time when writing articles was very stressful for me. I was in college for a writing degree so I had many essays to write along with the news articles. Once I got engaged, I realized the pressure of school on top of the stress of preparing for a wedding meant that my time writing with Zelda Universe, unfortunately, had to come to an end, at least for the time being.
I was a volunteer for two years and I always look back at that time fondly. I was able to grow and progress as a writer with the help of the editing team. I was also able to have a network of friends to talk about my favorite games with. I volunteered to do this freely because Zelda and writing are two things I love and am passionate about, and I believe that everyone on the Zelda Universe team feels the same way.
Zelda Universe is now celebrating its 20th birthday! Be sure to check out more of our memories from the site’s two-decade history.
