The Future of Four Swords Adventures

After finishing Four Swords in a group of four players via Nintendo Switch Online (see here), the question came up if we could continue this in Four Swords Adventures. Some of us had played the game together before, in 2018 on a Zelda gathering, but we were never able to finish it, because it's simply too inconvenient to make this happen again with all the required hardware. Of course, you could always use unofficial emulation, but that might not run so well and for the sake of comfort we probably will stick to Nintendo's offerings, like you now can with Four Swords.

However, it's unlikely that Nintendo will ever want to remake or remaster Four Swords Adventures. The multiplayer Zelda games are generally not as popular and they are better off putting such resources into remakes of the singleplayer titles, e.g The Minish Cap, or into making a new multiplayer game altogether. There is also the problem that Four Swords Adventures required an exotic setup, where each player gets their own screen in the form of a Game Boy Advance, in addition to the TV screen. That's not something that you will be able to replicate with the Nintendo Switch right now.

Still, the best chance of this game ever making a re-appearance is actually via Nintendo Switch Online... given that Nintendo offers a library of GameCube games one day. But that's probably not going to happen on the current Nintendo Switch, because it might be too weak for that. Well, the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection already runs both Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy on emulators, so it's technically possible to have GameCube and Wii games on the Switch. But this was without being embedded into the online environment...

screenshots by u/EruditeWho

In any case, you could display the main screen of the game (which is in 4:3 format) right next to your GBA screen, as shown in the above mockup. It's not ideal, but this would be good enough for such a re-release and perfectly emulate the original setup, where each player had a screen of their own next to the shared TV screen. You're not supposed to see what the other players have on their screens, though there could be an option to allow this as well.

Alternatively, they could also assign a button for turning the GBA screen on and off as a layer above the main screen. That would be similar to how it's done in the singleplayer mode of Four Swords Adventures, so it should work fine in theory. And this way you don't have to compromise with the screen sizes.

So, it's entirely possible that we will see a return of Four Swords Adventures one day, which is one of the few mainline Zelda games that never have been re-released in any form, the others being A Link Between Worlds and Tri Force Heroes from the Nintendo 3DS. And this would already be a lot more comfortable than playing the original, because all you need is a Nintendo Switch per player.

The downside here would be that only the host gets to make progress. This is unlike Four Swords on the Game Boy Advance, where each player makes their individual progress in the form of the different keys. That's because everyone has their own copy of the game and with it their own save data. But this difference was already true for the original versions, since you can only play this on one GameCube at a time.

And unlike Four Swords, you're also not dependent on other players, because this was built with a singleplayer mode in mind. So, you can play this with others online, but you don't have to. Only the Tingle Tower levels and the Shadow Battles mode are exclusive to multiplayer, but that's because they focus on competition.

The Navi Trackers mode was originally exclusive to the Japanese and Korean versions, where this will likely remain that way. But maybe Nintendo will make those versions easily accessible to the other regions as well, as long as you don't mind playing in some foreign language.