Games released in 1988 sorted by popularity

Based loosely on Jules Verne’s famous tale, this game lets you live your steampunk submarine dreams with all the elegance of a DOS interface. You command the Nautilus, explore the ocean depths, and encounter strange sea crea...

Strap in and crawl through the mud - Airborne Ranger (1988) is here to chew bubblegum and infiltrate enemy lines. And it's all out of bubblegum. This tactical action game lets you drop behind enemy territory, blow things up, and l...

Shadowgate is an abandoned fantasy-themed adventure game developed by ICOM Simulations and released by Mindscape in 1988 for Macintosh, DOS, and also for Amiga, Apple IIgs, Atari ST, NES. Shadowgate uses the ICOM MacVenture e...

Ah, 2400 A.D. A game where you can rebel against a robot police state… by slowly walking around in beige. Released in 1988, it’s what happens when you mix Orwellian dystopia with MS Paint aesthetics. You’ll snea...

Before space marines were gritty and everything exploded in brown and grey, there was The Adventures of Captain Comic. This is early PC platforming in all its clunky, jumpy, 4-color glory. You collect treasures, shoot baddies with...

Released in 1988 for DOS, this game lets you drive monster trucks across deserts, swamps, and icy wastelands with all the grace of a drunken forklift. It’s less about speed and more about not flipping your vehicle like a pan...

Before Madden became a household name, 1988 gave us this DOS football classic, where plays are drawn like cave paintings and players move like molasses in January. Yet, for its time, this was the real deal. You could call plays, m...

Zany Golf is what happens when someone says, “Let’s make miniature golf, but with teleporters, hamburgers, and anti-gravity pads.” Part mini-golf simulator, part fever dream, this early EA title serves up surreal...

Before NBA 2K made your thumbs cry, there was One-on-One Basketball. You get to control either Larry Bird or Julius Erving in a thrilling display of 80s pixelated hoop dreams. The court looks like it was drawn with a ruler and thr...

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games (now known as LucasArts). It was first released in 1988 for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Amig...

Your uncle is dead, but his ghost can still blow out candles. That’s the premise. Bubble Ghost is a quirky physics puzzler where you guide a delicate bubble through haunted rooms by gently blowing on it—yes, literally ...

World Class Leader Board is a golf simulation game developed and published by Access Software and released in the late 1980s for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, and PC. Players could choose their cl...

UMS, short for Universal Military Simulator, is a computer-based wargame simulation developed by Rainbird Software in 1988. It was designed with the intention of providing players with a comprehensive and realistic military simula...

MicroProse Soccer is an abandoned action-oriented soccer game, developed by Sensible Software and released by MicroProse Software in 1988. The appeal of MicroProse Soccer was its simplicity and the smooth controls. In the United S...

In Annals of Rome, you don’t just play history — you command it, badly. This 1988 strategy title lets you take control of the Roman Empire and try to keep it from falling apart, which it will, probably because you let ...

Uridium is a classic shoot 'em up video game that was originally developed by Andrew Braybrook and published by Hewson Consultants in 1986 for various home computer platforms (including MS-DOS). In Uridium, players control a ...

Menace is a classic shoot 'em up video game that was developed by DMA Design, a company later known as Rockstar North, and initially released in 1988. The game was originally released for the Amiga and Atari ST home computer syste...

Half comic book, half arcade game, Batman: The Caped Crusader (1988) offers a delightfully weird aesthetic with its paneled visual style and pulp serial vibe. You’ll punch, puzzle-solve, and generally Batman your way through...