Code Like It's 198x

The 2000s.

See what appeared alongside what you already know. Follow an event into the Vault, or narrow the decade to a subject.

145 events · 140 Vault · 5 world

145 events

2000

21 events
  • Companies & Studios

    Cavedog Entertainment ends

    Humongous Entertainment's games for grown-ups

  • Classic Games

    Deus Ex

    Ion Storm Austin's conspiracy thriller, and the game that let you choose

  • Demos

    Deus Ex Machina

    Crest and Oxyron's Mekka & Symposium 2000 winner

  • Distribution

    Episodic Gaming

    Selling a game one instalment at a time

  • Groups

    farbrausch

    The German PC group that stored recipes instead of data

  • Demos

    fr-08: .the .product

    farbrausch's 64K intro that stored no pictures

  • Companies & Studios

    Hitmaker

    Sega AM3 under a new name: Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis and the arcade after the Dreamcast

  • Classic Games

    Hitman

    IO Interactive's assassination series

  • Classic Games

    Icewind Dale

    Black Isle's dungeon crawl on the Baldur's Gate engine, with a party you build yourself

  • Classic Games

    Jet Set Radio

    Graffiti, inline skates and cel shading on the Dreamcast

  • Companies & Studios

    Looking Glass Studios ends

    The Massachusetts studio behind Ultima Underworld, System Shock and Thief

  • Classic Games

    Mario Tennis

    Camelot's two-button tennis, and the first appearance of Waluigi

  • Emulators

    PCSX

    The PlayStation emulator that learned to do without Sony's BIOS

  • Classic Games

    Perfect Dark

    Rare's science-fiction successor to GoldenEye

  • Systems

    PlayStation 2

    Best-selling console ever

  • Companies & Studios

    Probe Software ends

    The Croydon conversion house behind Out Run, Savage and Mortal Kombat

  • Companies & Studios

    Smilebit

    Jet Set Radio's studio, from the Dreamcast to the Xbox

  • Classic Games

    SSX

    EA Canada's arcade snowboarding, and the first EA Sports Big game

  • Companies & Studios

    Tandy Corporation is renamed

    The leather company that put computers in Radio Shack

  • Companies & Studios

    United Game Artists

    Sega's Shibuya studio, home of Space Channel 5 and Rez

  • Classic Games

    Vagrant Story

    Choosing where to strike in Leá Monde

2001

20 events
  • Classic Games

    Advance Wars

    The Wars series leaves Japan

  • Classic Games

    Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

    Troika's fantasy world in the middle of an industrial revolution

  • Software

    Aseprite

    The sprite editor that grew from a hobby project into a small business

  • Classic Games

    Black & White

    Lionhead's god game with a creature to raise

  • Companies & Studios

    BlueSky Software ends

    San Diego developer of Vectorman, Jurassic Park and Sega's American sports games

  • Companies & Studios

    Bullfrog Productions is absorbed

    The Guildford studio behind Populous, Syndicate, Theme Park and Dungeon Keeper

  • Classic Games

    Burnout

    Criterion's racing series about traffic, risk and crashing

  • Communities

    CSDb

    The credits and connections around C64 releases

  • Systems

    Game Boy Advance

    An ARM in a Game Boy's pocket

  • Classic Games

    Golden Sun

    A Super Famicom-style role-playing game in your pocket

  • Classic Games

    Grand Theft Auto III

    DMA Design takes the series into 3D

  • Classic Games

    Halo: Combat Evolved

    Bungie's ringworld shooter, and the Xbox's launch game

  • Companies & Studios

    Krisalis Software ends

    Rotherham's conversion house, and the publisher it grew into

  • Classic Games

    Pro Evolution Soccer

    Konami's Tokyo-made football series, from Winning Eleven to eFootball

  • Classic Games

    Rez

    A rail shooter where every shot plays a sound

  • Groups

    Rgba

    The Spanish group behind Elevated and the first Shadertoy

  • Emulators

    ScummVM

    Keeping the game data and replacing the engine

  • Companies & Studios

    Technosoft is absorbed

    The Sasebo company behind Thunder Force and Herzog Zwei

  • Systems

    Xbox

    Microsoft enters gaming

  • PoliticsWorld context

    September 11 attacks reshape the world

    Terrorist attacks on the United States trigger wars, surveillance expansion, and a fundamental shift in global politics and technology.

2002

12 events

2003

20 events

2004

21 events
  • Companies & Studios

    Acclaim Entertainment goes into liquidation

    From Nintendo's first American licensee to a bankruptcy auction

  • Companies & Studios

    Argonaut Software goes into liquidation

    From Starglider to the Super FX chip

  • Classic Games

    Cave Story

    One man's free Metroid-style adventure

  • Companies & Studios

    Delphine Software goes into liquidation

    The Paris studio a record label paid for

  • Culture & Community

    EA Spouse

    The blog post that made crunch public

  • Classic Games

    Fable

    Big Blue Box's Xbox role-playing game, and the acorn that never grew

  • Classic Games

    Football Manager

    Sports Interactive's series, the continuation of Championship Manager under an old name

  • Classic Games

    Half-Life 2

    Valve's physics-driven sequel, and the game that made Steam compulsory

  • Companies & Studios

    Hitmaker is absorbed

    Sega AM3 under a new name: Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis and the arcade after the Dreamcast

  • Companies & Studios

    Impressions ends

    An accountant's hobby that became Sierra's city-building studio

  • Culture & Community

    Indie Games

    Small teams selling their own games

  • Classic Games

    Katamari Damacy

    Roll up the world

  • Classic Games

    Lumines

    The falling-block puzzle that keeps time with its music

  • Systems

    Nintendo DS

    Two screens, one you could touch

  • Companies & Studios

    Nintendo R&D1 is absorbed

    Gunpei Yokoi's department

  • Companies & Studios

    Origin Systems ends

    We create worlds

  • Magazines

    Retro Gamer

    The magazine about old games that nearly died in its second year

  • Companies & Studios

    Smilebit is absorbed

    Jet Set Radio's studio, from the Dreamcast to the Xbox

  • Companies & Studios

    Telltale Games

    The former LucasArts team that sold adventures by the episode

  • Classic Games

    Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

    Troika's last game: a vampire role-playing game that critics loved and its bugs nearly buried

  • TechnologyWorld context

    Facebook launches from a Harvard dorm room

    Mark Zuckerberg's social network begins its rise to become the dominant platform connecting billions of people worldwide.

2005

10 events
  • Software

    FamiTracker

    A free Windows tracker for writing NES and Famicom music

  • Classic Games

    Guitar Hero

    Harmonix and RedOctane's plastic guitar, and the boom and slump that followed

  • Companies & Studios

    Imagine Publishing

    The Bournemouth house that bought Retro Gamer from the receivers

  • Companies & Studios

    Ion Storm ends

    John Romero's studio: a Dallas penthouse, Daikatana, and Deus Ex from Austin

  • People

    Mary Jackson dies

    From calculations to wind-tunnel experiments

  • Demos

    Ocean Machine

    The Black Lotus at Breakpoint 2005

  • Classic Games

    Pokémon Mystery Dungeon

    Chunsoft's roguelike, played as a Pokémon

  • Companies & Studios

    Troika Games ends

    Fallout's makers on their own, 1998–2005

  • Tools

    Unity

    The game engine that went free

  • Classic Games

    Yakuza

    Sega's Like a Dragon series

2006

4 events
  • Classic Games

    Company of Heroes

    Relic's Second World War in cover and rubble

  • Companies & Studios

    Core Design is acquired

    The Derby studio that grew out of Gremlin and made Tomb Raider

  • Companies & Studios

    Media Molecule

    The Guildford studio behind LittleBigPlanet, Tearaway and Dreams

  • Demos

    Starstruck

    The Amiga demo that won Assembly 2006

2007

12 events
  • Classic Games

    Assassin's Creed

    The Prince of Persia game that became an assassin

  • Classic Games

    BioShock

    Irrational's shooter in a drowned Randian city

  • Communities

    Codebase64

    Putting scattered C64 programming knowledge in one place

  • Demos

    fr-041: debris.

    farbrausch's 177K city that tears itself apart

  • Companies & Studios

    Frictional Games

    The Swedish studio behind Penumbra, Amnesia and SOMA

  • People

    Jim Butterfield dies

    The Toronto teacher who explained Commodore machine language to its owners

  • People

    Karen Spärck Jones dies

    Why a rare word can help a search

  • Classic Games

    Mass Effect

    BioWare's science-fiction trilogy, planned so your choices travel with you

  • Classic Games

    Rock Band

    Harmonix's four-player band game, built on the record companies' own multitrack masters

  • Languages

    Scratch

    Logo's idea of programming for children, rebuilt as snap-together blocks

  • Classic Games

    Supreme Commander

    Total Annihilation's ideas, ten years on

  • TechnologyWorld context

    Apple launches the iPhone

    Steve Jobs unveils a device that combines phone, music player, and internet communicator, launching the smartphone revolution.

2008

11 events
  • Tools

    Arcade Game Designer

    The Quill's idea, applied to arcade games

  • People

    Dorothy Vaughan dies

    Leading a computing group through changing tools

  • Demos

    Edge of Disgrace

    Booze Design's X'2008 winner

  • Emulators

    FCEUX

    The NES emulator built from its own forks

  • Companies & Studios

    Hello Games

    The Guildford studio behind Joe Danger and No Man's Sky

  • Phenomena

    Indie Renaissance

    When one- and two-person games found a worldwide audience

  • Classic Games

    LittleBigPlanet

    Play, create, share

  • Companies & Studios

    Sierra On-Line ends

    The adventure game company from the foothills of Yosemite

  • Classic Games

    Spelunky

    Derek Yu's cave-diving platformer, rebuilt on every visit

  • Genres

    Walking Simulator

    The first-person shooter without the shooting

  • EconomicsWorld context

    Global financial crisis erupts

    The collapse of Lehman Brothers triggers the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, reshaping economies worldwide.

2009

14 events
  • Classic Games

    Demon's Souls

    The PlayStation 3 game that a Sony producer and FromSoftware made against the fashion of 2009

  • Companies & Studios

    Devolver Digital

    The third publisher from the founders of Gathering of Developers

  • Classic Games

    Dragon Age: Origins

    BioWare's "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate"

  • Companies & Studios

    Eidos Interactive is absorbed

    The video-compression company that bought Domark, U.S. Gold and Lara Croft

  • Demos

    Elevated

    A mountain flight in 4,096 bytes

  • Companies & Studios

    Empire Interactive goes into liquidation

    Pipe Mania, Campaign and DreamWeb, from Essex to North Finchley

  • Companies & Studios

    Ensemble Studios is dissolved

    The Dallas studio behind Age of Empires

  • Companies & Studios

    Infogrames is renamed

    The Lyon publisher that grew from two people and a telephone into the owner of Ocean, Gremlin and the Atari name

  • Hardware

    KryoFlux

    Reading a floppy disk one magnetic pulse at a time

  • Companies & Studios

    Midway goes into liquidation

    From bingo-pinball to Pac-Man and Mortal Kombat

  • Companies & Studios

    Mojang

    The company built around Minecraft

  • Companies & Studios

    Supergiant Games

    The small studio behind Bastion and Hades

  • Genres

    Survival Games

    Hunger, cold and the coming night

  • TechnologyWorld context

    Minecraft begins its blocky conquest

    Markus 'Notch' Persson releases an early version of Minecraft, a game that will become one of the best-selling of all time.