“The site has gone through four owners, eight different webmasters, and literally hundreds of site and forum staff members, but after nine years the site is still moving strong. With a reemphasis on more consistent updates, interesting articles, an expanding forum community, and with new video content, Zelda Universe has lasted the test of time, proving to be able to adapt to any obstacles thrown its way.“
- Mases, Webmaster of Zelda Dungeon -
It’s hard to find a site that is more recognized than Zelda Universe. Since its inception, ZU has grown to become one of the most popular and largest Zelda sites in existence.
Zelda Universe was founded in 2001 by Lars-Christian, at a time when the Zelda community was booming, thanks in large part to the recent releases of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. In an effort to create a niche for ZU to exist, Lars expanded his site to include the entire Zelda series. Thanks to the hiring of staff members, and a tremendous amount of game content, ZU steadily grew in popularity to the behemoth it is today.
However, all sites go though their ups and downs and Zelda Universe is no exception. One of the more notable issues during its long tenure was the turnover of webmasters. During a period of uncertainty, ownership of ZU exchanged hands several times, with it any sense of site stability. It took a while before things settled back to normal, with the site run today under webmasters Jason and Cody.
Despite these problems, Zelda Universe is remains one of the most popular Zelda sites on the internet. This is thanks in large part for it’s plethora of content. There are pages and pages of information for each game, thoroughly typed up by dedicated staff members. Their article section focuses on every single possible Zelda related topic you can think of. Pages delve deep into the history of Hyrule, the pronunciation of language, profiles of the various races and so on. This content could keep you occupied for hours and that’s not even including their media gallery, video section or fan works. It’s easy to see why people keep coming back, and the staff is always hard at work providing more content.
Finally, you can’t really talk about Zelda Universe without mentioning its community. Zelda Universe boasts one of the largest, if not the largest, forum community at over 50,000 members. Many a Zelda community member started out in these very forums, some going on to create projects and websites of their own.
It is hard to imagine a community where Zelda Universe does not exist. While it’s had its share of struggles during its 9 year existence, ZU is also seen as one of the leaders of the Zelda community. For their continued dedication and service, it is my pleasure to award this year’s Golden Mirror Shield for Lifetime Achievement to Zelda Universe. Congratulations to Lars, Jason, Cody, and the sheer number of staff that have been apart of ZU; best of luck in the years to come.
