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RetroArch
RetroArch is an open source and cross platform frontend/framework for emulators, game engines, video games, media players and other applications
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Data as of 2026-05-20.
“I'll give it my positive, because it IS Retroarch. However... Psst... (Just get Retroarch nightly from the website, then add it as a non-steam game. You will get more cores with better performance, and the latest updates.)”
— a player, Steam review · 113 hrs played“I was bald before I installed this program, but now that I've played my fav SNES games again I can say with total confidence that I'm still bald, but very happy.”
— a player, Steam review · 8 hrs played“Retroarch is a great emulator BUT the steam version is horribly stripped, thankfully this can be fixed with 2 minutes of work. This emulator being on steam is amazing, it comes with a few preview cores to get you started, cloud saved settings via steam cloud (which i have…”
— a player, Steam review · 229 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live count fetched 2026-07-24 00:53 UTC · history via SteamCharts.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-11. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
RetroArch 1.21.0 release
RetroArch 1.21.0 has just been released. Changelog AUTOCONF: Enable alternative display name in autoconfig files AUTOCONF: Make autoconfig failure messages optional AUDIO: Option to mute on rewind AUD
RetroArch 1.20.0 release
RetroArch 1.20.0 has just been released. Changelog AUDIO: Fix audio handling in case of RARCH_NETPLAY_CTL_USE_CORE_PACKET_INTERFACE AUDIO: Include missing audio filters on some platforms AUDIO/PIPEWIR
RetroArch 1.19.0 release
RetroArch 1.19.0 has just been released. Read the full article on our website here . Changelog AI: Revert AI translation to previous version (fix for translation not working with HW rendered cores) AP
Version 1.19.0 released
RetroArch 1.19.0 has just been released. Changes AI: Revert AI translation to previous version (fix for translation not working with HW rendered cores) APPLE: Try to use system preferred language APPL
Dosbox Pure core added
We added a new core, Dosbox Pure. This brings the total number of available cores on Steam to 65 now. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3005610/RetroArch__DOSBox_Pure/ DOSBox Pure is a hard fork of t
Games like RetroArch
From our knowledge graph — ranked by shared traits, not a black box. Each card says why it's here.
SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics
76.3% · 7,204 reviews
shares Classic, 1990s, Local Multiplayer, Old School
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
86.9% · 654 reviews
shares Classic, 1980s, 1990s, Local Multiplayer
METAL SLUG X
85.6% · 1,213 reviews
shares Classic, Local Multiplayer, Old School, Co Op
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise Of The Dragons
84.8% · 726 reviews
shares 1990s, Local Multiplayer, Old School, Co Op
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara
84.4% · 1,132 reviews
shares Classic, Local Multiplayer, Co Op, Retro
Slipstream
87.7% · 1,257 reviews
shares 1980s, 1990s, Local Multiplayer, Old School
METAL SLUG 3
87.4% · 3,398 reviews
shares Classic, Local Multiplayer, Old School, Co Op
The Expendabros
96.5% · 7,119 reviews
shares Classic, Local Multiplayer, Free To Play, Co Op
Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-20.
| Genres | Free To Play |
| Player tags | Free to Play · Retro · Software · Arcade · Singleplayer · Classic · Multiplayer · Local Multiplayer · Simulation · Old School · 1990's · Pixel Graphics (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Multi-player · PvP · Online PvP · LAN PvP · Shared/Split Screen PvP · Co-op · Online Co-op |
| Languages | English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese - Portugal, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish - S… |
| Controller | Full support |
| Estimated owners | 1,000,000 – 2,000,000 (SteamSpy) |
| Official site | https://www.retroarch.com |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Processor: Intel Pentium 4 and up (CPU with SSE2 instructions required) Memory: 32 MB RAM Graphics: Any compliant OpenGL 2.x or Direct3D11 GPU. For shaders to work properly, should support at least Shader Model 2.0. DirectX: Version 11 Additional Notes: For OpenGL: Intel HD 2K/3K GPUs on Windows 10 will have to fall back to an OpenGL 1.1 driver.