The Dead Game Archive
I wanted to showcase a bunch of dead games since the issue of ownership, game licensing, and live service games has recently been kind of
a plague.
This project is a loveletter to all the dead games out there that were loved by many but forgotten.
This isn't an exhaustive list of games, but a list of games that I think are important, notable, or interesting.
If you have a game you think that should be added to the list, hit me up on social media!
About Me
What is a Dead Game
For me a dead game is a game that kinda falls into one of 3 categories:
- A game that can't be played
- The game is online only and the servers have since been shutdown
- The game has had the license revoked and removed from accounts
- A game that has been abandoned
- The game is able to be launched
- The servers are online but lack of players make matchmaking into a ghost town
- Effectively LAN only
- A game that can't be obtained first hand legally
- The game is only available on an unsupported console
- It's no longer being sold, only second hand copies can be obtained
- No official port to another active platform
This is just my opinion of course, some people's definitions are more or less strict than mine. I include games that are no longer for sale as dead because for me if the only solutions are 🏴☠️, or buying an expensive second hand copy, then it's basically dead.
Example: Just because I can buy a second hand $2,000 copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga(at least as of 2026-01-30) shouldn't mean the game should be considered "accessible"
Anyway I wanted to highlight this stuff because we're now more than ever seeing things like bit-rot and disc-rot and preservation isn't just solely for online games.
Bit-rot is something we're already having to worry about with cartridges even as recent as the now 15 year old 3DS, let alone systems that are now 35+ years old.
What about X?
You might be asking why I don't talk at all about or highlight emulation or preservation projects, and while I love the comunities around
things like private servers and those preserving games through emulation are amazing. The last thing I would want is for this project to
be used as a way to find and target those projects with takedowns.
I think preservation is important and necessary, and I personally push for there to be fredom of ownership legislation around legal
backups, emulation, and consuimer rights. However until there's more protections for those things I wouldn't want to put those projects in any kind of danger of being targeted with C&D letters.
Inspirations
I've been heavily inspired by many others in the software preservation, and consumer rights spaces. I'm not associated with any of these
groups but they do good work.
The design of the site was really inspired by others who are interested in dead software including:
Stop Killing Games is also something that inspitred me to make this, while not associated with them, I appreciate that it's gotten gamers to start thinking more about game preservation and consumer rights.
Right to Repair
I'm also a huge advocate of things like 'Right to Repair' and other consumer rights things, while I don't have anything here, here's some things to check out if you are into that kind of thing, not associated with any of these sites but if you're interested it's a place to start!