Microsoft Creates a Surprisingly Amusing Game to Help Wean Us Off Windows XP

Evade IE6 icons and the dreaded Clippy

April 10, 2014

With millions of Windows XP users clinging desperately to the reliable but officially obsolete operating system, Microsoft has created a surprisingly fun new game to nudge us all into the future. Or present. Or at least recent past.

Escape From XP is an arcade-style video game in which you play as a developer who's been stuck supporting Windows XP and the antiquated Internet Explorer 6, your grandmother's favorite Web browser.

Check out the entertaining little game here, brought to us by agency Bradley and Montgomery (a fun nod to the Kurt Russell masterpiece, Escape From New York) and our shot-by-shot GIF breakdown of Escape From XP below.

Put an end to zombie IE6 and Windows XP once and for all in our new game, “Escape from XP.” http://t.co/bPzJpUk7TF pic.twitter.com/UC97V1DF1U
— Internet Explorer (@IE) April 9, 2014

First we are confronted with our old friend, "Bliss," which glitches out to the "blue screen of death."

Next we are transported to a terrible dystopia and tasked with escaping from XP:

Here in this wasteland our plucky developer traverses a graveyard of browser windows, battling recycling bins and the Internet Explorer logo. And watch out for the enormous Clippy in the background shooting LASERS FROM HIS EYES.