National Videogame Museum

The National Videogame Museum in Sheffield is housed in a single large room filled with full-sized arcade cabinets, retro and modern TVs connected to various gaming consoles, and desks equipped with computers and gaming systems. Originally established in 2015 as the National Videogame Arcade, the museum was opened in its current location in 2018.

Visitors can play all of the games for free—and are encouraged to do so; the staff may even check in on people and offer tips. The games themselves cover a range of genres and eras. Visitors could see anything from the original arcade versions of Space Invaders or Donkey Kong to text-based adventures to modern AAA racing games to recently released indie puzzle games. 

The museum also takes its work of preserving video games seriously. Several display cases around the museum feature a range of game consoles, controllers, and other items spanning many decades of gaming industry history. A particular emphasis is placed on presenting the games and hardware developed within the United Kingdom. These displays give visitors the opportunities to see the evolution of video games from the 1970s right up to the present.