4Stack #9 — answers & breakdown
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Release years, which is the format people either love or find completely unfair. There is no wordplay to fall back on: you either know when things came out or you are guessing.
The sixteen cards in this puzzle were: Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid, StarCraft, Skyrim, Minecraft, Dark Souls, Portal 2, Breath of the Wild, PUBG, Cuphead, Hollow Knight, Baldur's Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, Alan Wake 2, Lies of P.
The four stacks
Released in 2023
Baldur's Gate 3, Tears of the Kingdom, Alan Wake 2, Lies of P
2023, a year so top-heavy that Baldur's Gate 3 and Tears of the Kingdom split most Game of the Year lists between them. Lies of P is the outlier — a Soulslike retelling of Pinocchio that nobody expected to be as good as it was.
Released in 2017
Breath of the Wild, PUBG, Cuphead, Hollow Knight
2017: often argued to be one of the strongest single years in the medium. Breath of the Wild and PUBG alone reshaped two entirely different parts of the industry.
Released in 2011
Skyrim, Minecraft, Dark Souls, Portal 2
2011: Portal 2, Dark Souls and Skyrim inside eight months of each other, and Minecraft finally leaving its long beta for a 1.0 release that November.
Released in 1998
Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid, StarCraft
1998: the year most frequently cited as the greatest in gaming history. Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid and StarCraft all shipped within twelve months of each other.
Want to try it yourself? Play puzzle #9 — archive plays don't affect your streak. Or jump into today's puzzle.