Nostalgia grips millennials in Monterey County and across the world with blockbuster video game releases.

Sloan Campi here, taking an agonizing break from playing my own copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake on my Nintendo Switch 2 to write this. 

Video game fever is gripping the world right now among mostly millennials and its shockwaves are being felt here in Monterey County.

On the night of Wednesday, Nov. 4, more than 40 people lined up outside of the Best Buy retailer in Marina for a chance to get a copy of the hotly anticipated Zelda game. While that may not sound like much, it coincided with hundreds of fans lining up at similar retailers in bigger cities such as San Francisco and New York City around the same time. But that’s squaring up against another video game set to be released in a week on Nov. 19: Grand Theft Auto VI. 

Both games have garnered a national response in pop culture, in everything from South Park (America) to Saturday Night Live. Nostalgia is the reason behind this, since both games have roots in the late 1990s. 

Zelda is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year since its first 8-bit game was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986. It’s a memory that lives with Seaside resident Sal Salas, who was waiting in line since 4pm in Marina on Nov. 4 for the 9pm release of the game and limited edition Nintendo Switch 2 console. (Nintendo planned a midnight release in the United States, which first hit the East Coast.) 

Salas is 52, but he remembers playing the Nintendo 64 game—The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time—with his daughter after its initial release in 1998. His daughter is now 30, and it was his first time waiting in line with a camping chair to get his hands on the release, which he did.

But there’s no doubt that long lines will return to retailers like Best Buy, Target and GameStop in Marina, Sand City and Salinas next week for GTA VI. The last time Rockstar Games released an iteration of the infamous series was 13 years ago, the same time that the notorious console wars between the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were also taken advantage of by pop culture.

Millennial gamers who grew up with Zelda and Grand Theft Auto remember playing through stories with mostly pixelated or polygonal graphics, yet were still amazing to witness. Back then, it was up to the player’s imagination to fill in the gaps limited by the time’s technology. 

Salas told me he initially felt stupid for bringing the chair to Marina’s Best Buy to wait in the line, not knowing what to expect. But I imagine that the same opening dialogue from the beloved 40-year-old game he first played—“It’s dangerous to go alone”—inspired him to pick up the game so he could witness it with his daughter. For players in Monterey County, the line outside retailers clearly meant they were not alone.

Has the video game fever gripped you? Drop me a line. I’ll be in the Water Temple, so response times may be longer than usual.