This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you may go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/11/return-to-the-year-2000-with-classic-multiplayer-dos-games-in-your-browser/
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
Red Alert</em>, Unreal Tournament</em>, and extra.”,”image_url”:”https://cdn.arstechnica.internet/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/screen1c-500×500.jpg”,”listing_image_url”:”https://cdn.arstechnica.internet/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/screen1c-768×432.jpg”}”>
Skip to content
Now with no port-forwarding!
There are fan-made browser variations of Red Alert, Unreal Tournament, and extra.
Over the previous couple of weeks, pals and colleagues have made me conscious of a number of ingeniously applied, browser-based methods to play traditional MS-DOS and Windows video games with different individuals on principally any {hardware}.
The late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s had been the height of multiplayer gaming for me. It was the period of real-time technique video games and boomer shooters, and never solely did I attend many LAN events, however I additionally performed on-line with pals.
That’s nonetheless potential immediately with a number of old-school video games; there are Discord servers that prepare scheduled matches of Starsiege Tribes, for instance. But oftentimes, it’s not precisely trivial to get these video games working in trendy Windows, and as within the outdated days, you may need some annoying community configuration work forward of you—to say nothing of the truth that many people who had been on Windows again in these days at the moment are on macOS or Linux as a substitute.
This week, a number of tech and gaming websites (beginning with PC Gamer) have begun circulating a hyperlink to Chrono Divide, a fan-made browser model of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. It was first launched in a nascent state again in 2020, nevertheless it has continued to obtain updates, and it’s now just about feature- and content-complete so far as the multiplayer a part of that recreation goes. (Single-player isn’t there but.)
Here’s what the web site says about it:
Chrono Divide is a fan-made undertaking which goals to recreate the unique “Red Alert 2” from the “Command & Conquer” collection utilizing internet applied sciences. The result’s a recreation shopper that runs in your internet browser, with no further plugins or functions put in.
The undertaking initially began out as an experiment and was meant to show that it was potential to have a totally working, cross-platform RTS recreation working in an online browser. Now, with a playable model already out there, the end-goal is reaching function parity with the unique vanilla “Red Alert 2” engine.
It works with a client-server mannequin (“say goodbye to port forwarding and firewall exceptions”), helps mods, affords each trendy and traditional mouse management schemes, and works “on any device and operating system, directly from your web browser,” together with telephones and tablets. You (understandably) need to have a replica of the sport recordsdata to play, although.
Further, there are leaderboards and a Discord server, plus modern-game-style “seasons” (with no monetization, in fact) that function particular guidelines and map rotations. So there’s a decent-sized neighborhood enjoying Red Alert 2 on the common in 2025, which is fairly wild.
Chrono Divide joins a handful of comparable initiatives in bringing older multiplayer PC video games with trendy bells and whistles to internet browsers. One instance: DOS Zone affords one-click becoming a member of of on-line matches of Doom, Quake 2 and 3, Unreal Tournament, and Half-Life: Deathmatch—once more, with a Discord server for an additional neighborhood layer.
So if you wish to spend your Friday evening reliving the TCP/IP and LAN get together multiplayer video games of the early 2000s, properly, there you go. I’ll see you there—I nonetheless assume Unreal Tournament is the perfect multiplayer first-person shooter ever made.
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you may go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/11/return-to-the-year-2000-with-classic-multiplayer-dos-games-in-your-browser/
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
