Purple Alert, Unreal Match, 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”}”>
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Now with no port-forwarding!
There are fan-made browser variations of Purple Alert, Unreal Match, and extra.
Over the previous couple of weeks, pals and colleagues have made me conscious of a number of ingeniously carried out, browser-based methods to play traditional MS-DOS and Home windows video games with different individuals on principally any {hardware}.
The late Nineties and early 2000s have 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 doable immediately with a number of old-school video games; there are Discord servers that prepare scheduled matches of Starsiege Tribes, for instance. However oftentimes, it's not precisely trivial to get these video games operating in trendy Home windows, and as within the previous days, you might need some annoying community configuration work forward of you—to say nothing of the truth that many people who have been on Home 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: Purple Alert 2. It was first launched in a nascent state again in 2020, however 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.)
Right here's what the web site says about it:
Chrono Divide is a fan-made mission which goals to recreate the unique “Purple Alert 2” from the “Command & Conquer” sequence utilizing net applied sciences. The result's a recreation shopper that runs in your net browser, with no further plugins or functions put in.
The mission initially began out as an experiment and was meant to show that it was doable to have a completely working, cross-platform RTS recreation operating in an online browser. Now, with a playable model already out there, the end-goal is reaching function parity with the unique vanilla “Purple Alert 2” engine.
It really works with a client-server mannequin (“say goodbye to port forwarding and firewall exceptions”), helps mods, presents each trendy and traditional mouse management schemes, and works “on any system and working system, instantly out of your net browser,” together with telephones and tablets. You (understandably) need to have a duplicate of the sport information to play, although.
Additional, 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 group taking part in Purple 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 net browsers. One instance: DOS Zone presents one-click becoming a member of of on-line matches of Doom, Quake 2 and 3, Unreal Match, and Half-Life: Deathmatch—once more, with a Discord server for an additional group layer.
So if you wish to spend your Friday night time reliving the TCP/IP and LAN celebration multiplayer video games of the early 2000s, effectively, there you go. I'll see you there—I nonetheless assume Unreal Match is the most effective multiplayer first-person shooter ever made.
