Game preservation just got a major win. One of the biggest online game archives, Myrient, has reportedly been fully backed up, ensuring a massive library of classic and modern-era titles won’t simply vanish when the original servers go offline.
Myrient recently announced it would shut down its servers on March 31 due to soaring operating expenses. According to the team behind the database, the rising cost of hosting, drive storage, and other ongoing infrastructure needs became unsustainable, with broader market pressures such as the RAM pricing crisis adding to the strain. For a data-heavy project like a ROM and game-file archive, those costs can balloon quickly, and Myrient said it could no longer afford to keep everything publicly accessible in its current form.
After the shutdown news spread, the wider gaming and emulation community mobilized to preserve what Myrient had built. That effort has now reached a significant milestone: a Reddit user, Ill-Economist-5285, said the complete archive—an enormous 385 TB of data—has been fully backed up.
With the backup step completed, the next phase is distribution and access. The same update noted that the group responsible is now working on generating torrents and making them available, a common approach for sharing extremely large data collections without relying on a single expensive server. The post also mentioned that an updated website is expected to launch in the near future, suggesting there may soon be a streamlined way for users to find information and follow progress.
For years, Myrient has been a go-to resource for people looking for verified ROM files used in emulation. These files often exist in a legal gray zone depending on ownership, region, and the specific content involved. Still, the archive became widely known in preservation circles for its breadth and convenience, covering retro console libraries and extending into later generations, including PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii U.
While Myrient’s original servers are still scheduled to go dark, the successful backup is a reminder of how quickly the community can respond when digital history is at risk. For archivists, collectors, and preservation-minded gamers, having a complete copy of a 385 TB game archive is a huge step toward keeping decades of gaming accessible for future generations.
