Just when it looked like a massive repository of retro games would be lost forever, the community banded together to save it. I’ve written several times about the importance of preserving video games, and there are many excellent efforts online that work to this end. There are several museums dedicated to video game and console preservation, as they make up a large portion of popular culture, and no matter what your mom told you growing up, games are a form of art. They deserve to be preserved, and if they’re lost forever, we collectively lose something of historical value.
Videos by ComicBook.com
On March 12, 2026, Pirat_Nation posted on X, stating that Myrient was 100% backed by the community. On March 5, I wrote an article about the closure of Myrient and the potential destruction of some 390 TB of data, all of which was focused on preserving video games from retro consoles, computers, and other systems. The site maintained a massive repository of games, game-related data, and more, which gamers could download and preserve. Myrient announced it was shutting down on March 31, 2026, forcing its users to scramble to download whatever they could, but 390 TB is a LOT of data.
Myrient’s Users Saved All of Its Data
Pirat_Nation’s post is excellent news for fans of video game preservation. It reads, “Good news, Myrient has been 100% backed up by the community. It’s a major video game preservation archive hosting over 390 terabytes of organized ROMs, ISOs, and collections that is shutting down on March 31, 2026.” The post doesn’t expand on how it was preserved, by how many people, nor where the data now resides. The closure of Myrient sent shockwaves through the preservation community because it was the largest online repository of these files. Unfortunately, it also cost its host $6,000 in monthly fees, a major reason for its closure.
On top of the cost and insufficient funding needed to keep it going, other issues arose, including paywalled download managers. These bypassed donation request messages and download protections, locking some features behind a paywall, and it’s made clear on the site that “The use of Myrient for commercial, for-profit purposes has always been strictly forbidden. Such egregious and abusive usage of the site cannot be tolerated anymore.” Additionally, the rising cost of RAM, SSDs, and HDDs, driven by AI data centers buying them up, has made it impossible to keep the site running.
Thankfully, with news that Myrient’s full library has been backed up by gamers, it won’t be lost when the site goes dark at the end of the month. This is excellent news for video game preservation, and it means that decades of lost games won’t actually be lost forever. They can be recompiled and re-released one day, or preserved for future generations to enjoy. Whatever the result, it’s an amazing accomplishment by an army of dedicated preservationists who managed to preserve nearly 400 TB of data. It’s unclear what the future holds, but at the very least, Myrient’s archive will continue to exist.
What do you think of this great accomplishment towards video game preservation? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Image Courtesy of TOHO -
Image Courtesy of Crunchyroll -
Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics -
Image courtesy of Marvel Studios
