Retro Game Emulator — Play ROMs in Browser
Play classic retro console games in your browser. Load a ROM file and start playing — NES, SNES, GBA, N64, Sega, and more.
Loading Retro Game Emulator — Play ROMs in Browser… If nothing happens, please enable JavaScript.
Frequently asked questions
Is it legal to use ROMs with this emulator?
What consoles does this emulator support?
What ROM file formats are accepted?
Is my ROM file uploaded to a server?
Does this tool connect to external servers?
Do save states or game progress persist between sessions?
What is EmulatorJS and is it trustworthy?
Is browser emulation accurate to the original hardware?
Is the tool accessible for players with disabilities?
What is the history of browser-based emulation?
About Retro Game Emulator — Play ROMs in Browser
Browser-based emulation lets you run software from classic gaming consoles directly inside a modern web browser — no installation, no plugins, and no dedicated emulator application required. This tool is powered by EmulatorJS, an open-source project that compiles established emulator cores (originally developed for desktop applications like RetroArch) into WebAssembly, enabling them to run at near-native speed inside a browser tab. Select the console you want to emulate, load a ROM file from your computer, press Launch, and the game begins within seconds. The entire emulation process runs locally on your device — nothing is uploaded to any server.
A critical legal point: you must only use ROM files for games you legally own. In most jurisdictions, creating a backup copy of a cartridge or disc you personally own may be permitted under fair use or private copying provisions, but downloading ROM files from the internet for games you do not own is copyright infringement regardless of the age of the game or whether the original publisher is still active. This tool provides no ROMs and makes no endorsement of piracy. It is intended for use with ROMs you have personally dumped from hardware you own. Always verify the copyright law applicable in your country before using emulation software.
EmulatorJS supports a wide range of classic platforms. Supported systems include the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), Super NES (SNES), Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), Sega CD, Sega 32X, Atari 2600, PlayStation 1, and arcade ROMs via MAME. Each system uses a dedicated emulation core from the EmulatorJS library. The appropriate core is downloaded automatically from EmulatorJS's CDN when you select a system — typically just a few megabytes and cached after the first load. Your ROM file is read by the browser's File API, converted to a local data URL, and passed to the sandboxed emulator iframe. It never leaves your device.
In-browser emulation offers a convenient way to preserve and revisit classic gaming history. Digital preservation of older games is a significant cultural and archival concern — many games from the 1980s and 1990s exist only on ageing physical media that degrades over time, and a substantial number are considered "abandonware" by their publishers. Emulation allows these works to remain playable long after the original hardware has become rare or non-functional, and browser-based emulation makes that preservation accessible without technical barriers. This tool is built for players who want to experience classic games they already own in a modern, convenient format.
The Long Road to Playing Retro Games in a Browser
Game emulation has existed almost as long as the games themselves. The first significant emulator in the modern sense was Nesticle, released in 1997, which allowed NES games to be played on Windows PCs. It was quickly followed by emulators for the SNES, Sega Genesis, and Game Boy. These early tools were often illegal in the eyes of hardware manufacturers — Nintendo in particular pursued legal action against several emulator developers and ROM hosting websites in the late 1990s — but the technical community continued developing them, motivated by preservation concerns and a desire to keep classic games playable as the original hardware aged and became scarce.
The legal landscape around emulation has remained nuanced for decades. A 1999 US federal court ruling in Sony v. Connectix established that creating an emulator by reverse-engineering hardware is not inherently copyright infringement, as long as no proprietary code from the original manufacturer is included. This provided legal cover for emulator development itself, while leaving ROM distribution in a grayer area. Many game publishers have since embraced emulation on their own terms — Nintendo's Virtual Console, Sony's PlayStation Classic, and Sega's Genesis Mini are all commercially sold emulation products. The Internet Archive maintains a substantial library of legally preserved software under its historical software collection, accessible through browser-based emulation.
The arrival of WebAssembly in 2017 transformed browser emulation from a curiosity into a practical technology. Projects like EmulatorJS demonstrated that the same emulation cores used in high-quality desktop applications could be compiled to WebAssembly and run inside a browser with acceptable performance — no plugins, no downloads, no configuration. This development has significant implications for digital preservation: a game preserved in a browser-compatible emulator can be accessed by anyone with a modern web browser, without requiring them to source and configure a specific operating system, emulator version, and hardware configuration. Cultural institutions including the Internet Archive and the Computer History Museum have used browser emulation to make historically significant software accessible to researchers and the public, recognising that playable preservation is a fundamentally different experience from simply archiving files.