One of the largest online repositories of retro video games is shutting down, which is a big blow to preservation. In the past, I’ve written about the importance of video game preservation, which concerns me as both a gamer and as a historian. Keeping older games around is necessary for the industry for various reasons, as games developed for older hardware need to be preserved so they aren’t lost. Otherwise, one of the most important media industries, which has contributed greatly to popular culture since the mid-20th century, will be forever diminished. The loss of such a large repository is a significant blow to these efforts.
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On March 5, 2026, Myrient posted a notice at the top of its landing page revealing that the site will shut down on March 31, 2026. In full, the notice reads, “Myrient will shut down on 31 March 2026. Download any content you find important.” If you’re scratching your head, wondering what Myrient is, then you’re likely unfamiliar with either video game preservation and/or ROMs. One of the best ways people have found to preserve old games is to compile their data into files called ROMs, which can be played on emulators. To be clear, using ROMs in this way isn’t legal, but it is an ideal way to preserve games.
Myrient’s Shutdown Is a Blow to Preservationists
Myrient maintains, or soon will have maintained, an online database of game files that amounts to 390TB of data. That’s an incredibly large number of games, and whichever platforms it has on the site, rest assured, it includes every game released on them. That includes everything from the Atari 2600 and Nintendo Entertainment System to just about every arcade game and every PlayStation 2 game. Again, using these on an emulator, especially if you don’t legitimately own the game, is illegal, and we’re not advocating their use in that regard. My interest in the files is all about preservation, and you only have to look at Konami as an example.
Konami famously lost the original source code for the Silent Hill games, so when it made the Silent Hill HD Collection, the company was forced to remaster them differently, resulting in an inferior product. Source code is the copyright of whoever holds the IP, but that doesn’t mean it’s always safe. Myrient worked for years to compile as much data as possible to ensure that games aren’t lost to history. If you think about it, there have been hundreds of thousands of games released over the years, and the preservation of older titles wasn’t a priority for a long time, so many have been lost. The same problem existed with movies, TV shows like Doctor Who, books, and most art forms.
While Myrient is shutting down, its data might find a home elsewhere. That all depends on who retains it once it’s offline. That said, it has been stored on servers for a long time, and downloading 390TB of data to physical media of any kind would take ages, not to mention being incredibly expensive. With any luck, Myrient’s users will grab what they can before the site goes dark, but some data may be lost. If that happens, who knows if it will ever be saved elsewhere? I retain hope that preservationists will prevail, but the loss of Myrient is a huge blow to such efforts.
What do you think about Myrient’s closure and the loss of 390TB of game files? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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