oldMS-DOS was the heart of PC gaming in the 80s and 90s — an open platform that hosted thousands of games, from text adventures and strategy to the shooters that defined the genre (Doom, Wolfenstein 3D). Not a console, but the gaming home of a whole generation.
- Maker: IBM PC
- Since: 1981
- Play via: DOSBox (js-dos)
Prefer to play offline on your PC? Emulators & how-to →
▶Hugo 31995MS-DOS / PC
▶The Simpsons Arcade Game1991MS-DOS / PC
▶Vlak1993MS-DOS / PC
▶Supaplex1991MS-DOS / PC
▶Sid Meier's Civilization1991MS-DOS / PC
▶Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle1991MS-DOS / PC
▶Bubble Bobble1989MS-DOS / PC
▶Amazing Spider-Man1990MS-DOS / PC
▶Dangerous Dave1990MS-DOS / PCThe IBM PC arrived in 1981 and MS-DOS came with it, but PC gaming only became serious once the graphics and sound caught up. EGA in 1984 brought 16 colours; VGA in 1987 brought the 320x200 mode with 256 colours that defined the look of the next decade. AdLib put a Yamaha FM synthesiser in a slot in 1987, Creative's Sound Blaster added digital sample playback in 1989, and suddenly the office machine could do things no console could. What it could not do was manage its own memory sensibly: the 640 KB conventional memory limit meant players spent real time editing CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT to free up a few more kilobytes before a game would even start.
The decade DOS owned
Between roughly 1988 and 1997 the PC took genres the consoles could not touch. Id Software turned the first-person shooter into a phenomenon with Wolfenstein 3D and then Doom, both distributed as shareware — you got the first episode free and paid for the rest by mail. Duke Nukem 3D, Heretic, Blood and Quake followed. Strategy grew up here too: Dune II established the real-time strategy template that Warcraft 2 refined, while Sid Meier's Civilization, Master of Orion and UFO: Enemy Unknown built the turn-based side. Adventure games hit their peak with Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Simon the Sorcerer; management sims with Transport Tycoon, SimCity 2000 and Theme Park; role-playing with Eye of the Beholder, Betrayal at Krondor and Fallout. And there was always room for the small and strange, from Lemmings and Prince of Persia to Stunts and Jazz Jackrabbit.
Playing DOS games in your browser
DOS is the platform we support best. 7,603 of the 22,476 DOS titles in the catalogue boot straight in the browser — a DOS emulator compiled to run inside the web page handles the CPU, the VGA card and the sound hardware, so you skip the part where you configure an emulator, mount a drive and hunt for the right sound settings. Nothing is downloaded and nothing is installed. The remaining entries are catalogue profiles, and games still on sale link to their official stores.