itch.io founder announces the 'return of Flash games' thanks to open source

Itch.io has re-implemented Flash support on its store using Ruffle, a free and open source Flash emulator that runs entirely in the browser, the store's founder announced. The old swfobject embed has been replaced with an iframe embed that runs .swf files through a recent Ruffle build (nightly build from 2026-11-03 as of the post), and developers with existing Flash projects need to do nothing; the store currently hosts 2,581 Flash games. Games using site-locks may need additional workarounds, and the founder asked users to report broken titles in the announcement thread.

After dealing with all the AI slop https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/11/game-store-itch-io-is-getting-flooded-with-ai-slop/ , the founder of itch.io has announced that Flash games are set to make a fun return thanks to open source. How? They're now using Ruffle https://ruffle.rs/ , a free and open source Flash Emulator that is made to run on all modern systems and browsers. It's a pretty amazing project for preservation. In a recent Blog Post https://ruffle.rs/blog/2026/11/04/stable-releases-and-everything-else , the Ruffle team noted some of the advancements made to the project. As for Flash games getting reimplemented on the itch.io store, the founder said https://itch.io/t/7319247/the-return-of-flash-games : We've got an update for fans of Flash games https://itch.io/games/flash We've re-implemented Flash support on itch.io using Ruffle https://ruffle.rs , an open source Flash emulator that runs entirely in your browser. Ruffle has been around for quite some time and compatibility is quite good from our testing. We've gotten a few requests over the years to add it to help make older games playable. The day has arrived If you're a developer with an existing Flash project, there's nothing to do The old swfobject embed has been replaced with an iframe embed that runs your .swf file with a recent build of Ruffle nightly build from 2026-11-03 as of this post . This is available for both old and new .swf files, in case you've got a backlog of games you've been meaning to host. Games that use site-locks may need some additional hacks. If a game doesn't work, feel free to leave it in the comments here and we can investigate. I recommend this game https://arkeus.itch.io/antichromatic I made its title screen music like 13 years ago 😅 and browse all the Flash games here https://itch.io/games/flash https://itch.io/games/flash There's currently 2,581 Flash games on the store. Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month: All posts need to follow our rules https://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php?module=rules . Please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Readers can also email us https://www.gamingonlinux.com/email-us/ for any issues or concerns.