A pivotal online hub for ROM hacks goes news-only after two decades

ROMhacking.net, a longtime stalwart of the online classic gaming world mostly turned the lights off on Saturday. Nightcrawler, who created and runs ROMhacking, announced that the site, which has hosted community-made alterations for classic games, has stopped taking submissions and will only post news going forward.

Nightcrawler said the site’s collection can be found on The Internet Archive (where, incredibly, all 20 years’ worth of hacks and other files are mostly concentrated in a single 11.7GB zip file.) He added that the forum will stay up and downloadables will remain available for now; otherwise, the site is in read-only mode.

Nightcrawler blamed the wind-down of the site on “24/7 use, endless queues, and an endless inbox,” as well as “legal burdens.” He also accused members of a group who’d offered to take over administering the site of doxxing him and of plotting to remove him from the site. One member of the group disputed his accusations in a series of posts on X.