Internet Archive is a service dedicated to maintaining and keeping track of historical iterations of the Internet and software, and they’ve just released a massive update which includes over 2000 MS-DOS games from the 90s.
While odds are you haven’t heard of the majority of these MS-DOS games, some of them are classics that helped define gaming, like Alone in the Dark, The Secret of the Monkey Island, and I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. These and many others are now available for you to play via your Internet browser.
This latest update for the Internet Archive dropped on Sunday, and it makes for one of the most content-rich media releases the website has ever had. “The usual caveats apply,” says the announcement: “Sometimes the emulations are slower than they should be, especially on older machines. Not all games are enjoyable to play. And of course, we are linking manuals where we can but not every game has a manual.”
The ability to play the games that Internet Archive has uploaded is not new, but it’s going to come in especially handy if you’re just looking for a hit of nostalgia. Any game you wish to play can load directly into your browser, without any downloads or installations necessary. This is great news particularly because some of the ancient MS-DOS titles refused to run on modern operating systems.
Internet Archive does face a number of issues related to their project, especially with games that were released on CD-ROM media: they take a long time to load, for example. Since CDs could store up to 700 MB of information, this data now needs to get streamed to your browser for use as a virtual resource.
“If you find yourself loading up one of these games and facing down a hundred-megabyte download, consider one of the smaller games instead, unless it’s a title you really, really want to try out,” says the official announcement, as there’s no way to go around the issue yet.
If you’re nostalgic about the 90s, we recommend you check out Internet Archive’s selection of classic games, which is surprisingly detailed and thorough.
