Many players played classic personal computer games for the MS-DOS PC platform during the 1980s and 1990s. DOS was a command-line operating system for PCs that Windows eventually fully replaced. DOOM, Prince of Persia, Wolfenstein 3D, Dune II, Sim City, and Lemmings are classic PC games from the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Today, you can play many classic retro PC games in your web browser on emulator sites. These are some of the better websites for playing retro computer games online.
Dos Zone
Dos Zone is one of my favorite sites for playing retro computer games online. This site includes 1,941 retro PC games for you to play in your web browser. Unlike some sites, Dos Zone isn’t stuffed with ads and has a streamlined design that makes it easy to find retro PC games. Click the index buttons at the bottom of the site to see all games that begin with particular letters.
The DOS Zone website
Dos Zone’s emulator also incorporates some useful configuration options. You can configure the display of games by changing the Aspect and Image rendering settings. Selecting smooth reduces pixelation in the games. The Emulation setting lets you choose between DOSBox-X and DOSBox emulation before starting a game. It also has a Theme setting with which you can select alternative color schemes for the emulator interface.
Emulation settings on DOS Zone
Freebie Games
Freebie Games is a website with a good collection of DOS and Windows 3x retro computer games games online. This site also includes a big catalog of retro games for SEGA, Atari, and Nintendo consoles. It’s a well-designed site that’s easy to navigate, with filter options for finding games according to genre, theme, perspective, and year. Plus, it includes detailed overview descriptions for the games that tell you more about them.
Freebie Games is also more touchscreen orientated for mobile devices than other retro PC game sites. It includes a touchscreen keyboard for players to activate. Some options enable players to activate visual on-screen keyboard buttons for game controls, which could be useful for mobile users.
Play DOS Games
Play DOS Games has a good collection of retro computer games online, amounting to 634 titles. It’s easy to navigate with an index that provides quick links to games. Creating an account on the site enables you to cloud-save your DOS game progress, something you can’t do on some alternative websites. Play DOS Games also has a community forum where you can discuss retro PC games and site issues.
The Play DOS Games website
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is one huge museum of websites and retro computer games online. It has one of the biggest archives of DOS games you can play in a web browser. The MS-DOS games software library on Internet Archives shows 8,632 software results. You can play any of them in your browser by selecting them and pressing the Click to Begin button.
The Internet Archive website
However, this website isn’t perfect for playing retro computer games online despite its huge collection of archived software. It only includes minimal fullscreen and mute sound options for playing games in web browsers. Nor does there appear to be any way to save game progress for DOS games played on the Internet Archive.
Best DOS Games
Best DOS Games doesn’t have the biggest library of retro computer games online, with a total of 161. However, it does have a good collection of some of the most popular DOS titles from the 1980s and 1990s, emphasizing quality rather than quantity. This site has a clean design with minimal ads but lacks a search box for finding titles. It provides good info for games included and has a similar DOS menu emulator feature to the DOS Zone site.
The Best DOS Games website
So, have a go at playing retro computer games online in your web browser on those websites. There, you’ll discover some terrific 1980s and 1990 PC games for a blast from the past. You can access all the sites by clicking their subheading links above.
