Code Like It's 198x

The 2010s.

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

71 events · 67 Vault · 4 world

71 events

2010

7 events

2011

9 events
  • People

    Annie Easley dies

    Scientific computing in Cleveland

  • Classic Games

    Dark Souls

    FromSoftware's 2011 action RPG of bonfires, strangers' messages and dying

  • Software

    DefleMask

    One tracker for many sound chips

  • Emulators

    FS-UAE

    WinUAE's emulation on Linux, macOS and Windows

  • Classic Games

    Minecraft

    Block by block

  • Companies & Studios

    Red Barrels

    The Montreal studio behind Outlast

  • Events

    Revision

    The Easter demo party in Saarbrücken

  • Classic Games

    The Binding of Isaac

    A basement dungeon that changes with each attempt

  • TechnologyWorld context

    Steve Jobs dies

    Apple's co-founder and visionary leader dies of pancreatic cancer at 56, ending an era of personal computing.

2012

13 events
  • Companies & Studios

    Chunsoft is renamed

    Dragon Quest's developer, then Mystery Dungeon and the sound novel

  • Demos

    Coma Light 13

    Oxyron's return to its old series, and the winner at X'2012

  • Phenomena

    CRPG Renaissance

    When players paid for the old-style role-playing game

  • Classic Games

    Dishonored

    Arkane's assassin in a plague-ridden city

  • Classic Games

    Hotline Miami

    Do you like hurting other people?

  • Companies & Studios

    Hudson Soft is absorbed

    The Sapporo radio shop that made Bomberman and the PC Engine

  • People

    Jack Tramiel dies

    Computers for the masses, not the classes

  • TechnologyWorld context

    Kickstarter transforms game funding

    Double Fine Adventure raises $3.3 million on Kickstarter, proving crowdfunding can revive genres abandoned by publishers.

  • People

    Mike Singleton dies

    The English teacher from Wallasey who wrote The Lords of Midnight

  • Companies & Studios

    Psygnosis ends

    From Imagine's ashes to the PlayStation launch

  • Hardware

    Raspberry Pi

    A pocket-money computer for a new generation

  • Software

    SID-Wizard

    A music tracker that runs on the Commodore 64 itself

  • Classic Games

    XCOM: Enemy Unknown

    Firaxis drops the hyphen and rebuilds the game

2013

4 events
  • Classic Games

    Gone Home

    A story told by an empty house

  • People

    Hiroshi Yamauchi dies

    The card-maker's heir who ran Nintendo for fifty-three years

  • Companies & Studios

    LucasArts ends

    Lucasfilm's games company, and the house that SCUMM built

  • Classic Games

    Outlast

    A night in an asylum with nothing but a camcorder

2014

8 events
  • Classic Games

    Alien: Isolation

    Creative Assembly's survival horror game, built as if it were 1979

  • Demos

    Comaland

    Censor Design and Oxyron's X'2014 winner

  • Classic Games

    Elite Dangerous

    The fourth Elite, crowdfunded by its players and set in a full-size Milky Way

  • People

    Ian McNaught-Davis dies

    Mac, the mountaineer who explained the micro on the BBC

  • Companies & Studios

    Neversoft is absorbed

    The Los Angeles studio that put Bruce Willis on a skateboard

  • People

    Ralph Baer dies

    The engineer who first put games on the home television

  • Classic Games

    Shovel Knight

    An 8-bit game as players remember them

  • Companies & Studios

    Team Cherry

    Adelaide's makers of Hollow Knight

2015

5 events

2016

7 events
  • Companies & Studios

    Imagine Publishing is acquired

    The Bournemouth house that bought Retro Gamer from the receivers

  • Companies & Studios

    Lionhead Studios is dissolved

    Peter Molyneux's studio after Bullfrog, maker of Black & White and Fable

  • Emulators

    Mesen

    The NES emulator that shows its working

  • Classic Games

    No Man's Sky

    A procedurally generated universe, an angry launch and years of free updates

  • People

    Seymour Papert dies

    Logo's best-known champion, and the author of Mindstorms

  • Companies & Studios

    Williams Electronics is absorbed

    The Chicago pinball maker behind Defender, Robotron and Joust

  • Culture & CommunityWorld context

    Pokémon GO sends millions into the streets

    Niantic's augmented reality game becomes a global phenomenon, briefly making mobile gaming a shared outdoor experience.

2017

7 events
  • Classic Games

    Hollow Knight

    Team Cherry's ruined insect kingdom

  • Companies & Studios

    Irrational Games is renamed

    The Looking Glass offshoot behind System Shock 2 and BioShock

  • Hardware

    MiSTer FPGA

    Old machines rebuilt in programmable logic

  • People

    Ray Kassar dies

    The textile executive who ran Atari

  • Classic Games

    The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

    Zelda rebuilt around physics, chemistry and an open map

  • Systems

    ZX Spectrum Next

    A new Spectrum, paid for by the people who wanted one

  • TechnologyWorld context

    Nintendo Switch blurs home and portable gaming

    Nintendo's hybrid console succeeds where Wii U failed, proving there's still a market for dedicated gaming hardware.

2018

8 events
  • People

    Ben Daglish dies

    Sheffield's self-described tunesmith: W.E.M.U.S.I.C., Gremlin and The Last Ninja

  • People

    Bob Wakelin dies

    The airbrush behind Ocean's covers

  • Classic Games

    Celeste

    A hard climbing game about anxiety, with an assist mode built in

  • Classic Games

    Dead Cells

    Repeated runs through an island whose routes open gradually

  • Companies & Studios

    Futuremark is renamed

    The Finnish maker of 3DMark, once called MadOnion.com

  • People

    Rick Dickinson dies

    The industrial designer who gave Sinclair's computers their shape

  • Companies & Studios

    Telltale Games goes into liquidation

    The former LucasArts team that sold adventures by the episode

  • Magazines

    Wireframe

    Games journalism with the tools left in

2019

3 events