ares is a free, open-source multi-system emulator built for accuracy and preservation, covering SNES, NES, Genesis, N64, Game Boy and more retro consoles.
ares is a free, open-source, cross-platform video game console emulator that emulates a wide range of retro gaming systems within a single application. It is developed by a community of contributors and distributed via ares-emu.net and GitHub.
The project descends from bsnes (started in 2004) and higan (2012), both created by the developer near. ares was forked from higan on March 25, 2020, combining the accessibility improvements of a revived bsnes with the goal of building an easy-to-use, actively developed multi-system emulator.
Unlike commercial software, ares has no company, pricing, or licensing fees behind it. It is released under the ISC license and relies on volunteer contributors for ongoing development.
ares emulates dozens of classic consoles and handhelds, including the NES, SNES, Game Boy family, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and its add-ons, PC Engine and its variants, WonderSwan, Neo Geo Pocket, and ColecoVision, among others.
The project prioritizes emulation accuracy and hardware-level fidelity over raw speed or maximum compatibility, aiming to preserve games and hardware behavior as faithfully as possible for long-term archival purposes.
It supports modern quality-of-life features such as save states, rewind, run-ahead input latency reduction, and dynamic audio/video rate control, and runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
ares is completely free to download and use. As an open-source project with no company behind it, there are no subscription tiers, paid upgrades, or licensing costs of any kind.
Yes, ares is a free, open-source emulator with no cost to download or use.
ares emulates a wide range of systems including NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and Mega CD, PC Engine, WonderSwan, Neo Geo Pocket, and more.
Yes, ares is a direct successor forked from higan in 2020, which itself evolved from the original bsnes project started in 2004.
ares runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
ares prioritizes emulation accuracy and preservation over raw speed or maximum game compatibility.
ares is developed by an open-source community of contributors, continuing work originally started by the developer known as near.
Yes, like all emulators, ares requires users to legally supply their own game files and, for some systems, firmware files.