The Closure of Myrient - The Source of Most of The Achilles Archive
ajdino
@ 2026-02-27 22:02:18
A very shocking announcement has rattled me to my core today. It is that the currently 390 terabyte database, Myrient, is permanently shutting down on the 31st of March this year. There are many reasons given for this decision in their official Discord and I won't get into that here. This story is making the rounds and you can get a better picture elsewhere. Instead, I will explain why this matters to our clan.
I spent a year using Myrient to archive Windows 9x through to Windows XP games. Every day, I spent from late morning through to early morning the next day scrolling through and googling each and every single game in their IBM/PC collection and downloading (at least as a starting point) every single game that met the criteria for The Achilles Archive. The gathering from Myrient came to a conclusion months ago, so this closure won't have an effect on our archive in any way. But it is disturbing to think that if I had procrastinated at any point in my mission with Achilles, that I might not have ever gotten this archive off the ground.
Simply put: there would be no Achilles Archive without Myrient.
They provided an alphabetized download list of every single PC game ever released on CD and DVD. It is because of this organization and thoroughness on their part that I was able to gather up a collection that not only contained the classics, but just every game imaginable, no matter how obscure.
Myrient didn't just store images of PC games. From what I understand, they didn't even just preserve every possible game collection in history either. They collected all forms of digital media. This is a major blow to half a century of data preserving how world culture and media has changed. This is a loss to each and every one of us, whether you used this service or not.
I am truly grateful to the effort and time they poured into their discipline. Their work inspires mine and will continue to.
The future of our niche hobby is more grim than not. Everything I'm doing with this clan and this archive are to combat this enshittification. Myrient isn't the first important service for legacy gaming to vanish and it won't be the last. However, there aren't many services left before we're left with nothing.
If you haven't had a chance to visit Myrient and explore it, I highly recommend you do before you lose the opportunity forever.
I should have uplifting news in the coming weeks.
Until then, be well.
I spent a year using Myrient to archive Windows 9x through to Windows XP games. Every day, I spent from late morning through to early morning the next day scrolling through and googling each and every single game in their IBM/PC collection and downloading (at least as a starting point) every single game that met the criteria for The Achilles Archive. The gathering from Myrient came to a conclusion months ago, so this closure won't have an effect on our archive in any way. But it is disturbing to think that if I had procrastinated at any point in my mission with Achilles, that I might not have ever gotten this archive off the ground.
Simply put: there would be no Achilles Archive without Myrient.
They provided an alphabetized download list of every single PC game ever released on CD and DVD. It is because of this organization and thoroughness on their part that I was able to gather up a collection that not only contained the classics, but just every game imaginable, no matter how obscure.
Myrient didn't just store images of PC games. From what I understand, they didn't even just preserve every possible game collection in history either. They collected all forms of digital media. This is a major blow to half a century of data preserving how world culture and media has changed. This is a loss to each and every one of us, whether you used this service or not.
I am truly grateful to the effort and time they poured into their discipline. Their work inspires mine and will continue to.
The future of our niche hobby is more grim than not. Everything I'm doing with this clan and this archive are to combat this enshittification. Myrient isn't the first important service for legacy gaming to vanish and it won't be the last. However, there aren't many services left before we're left with nothing.
If you haven't had a chance to visit Myrient and explore it, I highly recommend you do before you lose the opportunity forever.
I should have uplifting news in the coming weeks.
Until then, be well.
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