Science fiction games sorted by release date

Alternate Reality: The City is a role-playing video game developed by Paradise Programming for various platforms including Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, and Commodore 64. It was released in 1985. In Alternate Reality: The City, play...

Arkanoid is a classic arcade video game that was first released in 1986 by Taito. It is a breakout-style game, which means that the primary objective is to break a wall of bricks or blocks by bouncing a ball off a paddle at the bo...

Released in 1988, BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception is part RPG, part strategy, part “did I just die in the tutorial again?” You’re a young MechWarrior on the run, assembling allies and blowing stuff up w...

In Bionic Commando, you're a soldier with no jumping ability—because who needs knees when you have a grappling arm? Swing through 1988 DOS architecture like a pixelated Tarzan, blasting bad guys and trying not to fall to you...

Captain Blood is a space exploration video game released in 1988. It was developed by the French company ERE Informatique, and it was designed by Philippe Ulrich and Didier Bouchon. The game is set in a futuristic universe, where ...

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...

Dark Side (1988) is a first-person sci-fi adventure set on a moon orbiting a planet that’s about to be destroyed. No pressure. The gameplay combines exploration with puzzle-solving, wrapped in surprisingly ambitious 3D graph...

Released in 1988, Dream Zone was a surreal adventure where you explore your own subconscious after being sucked into a dream machine. It’s colorful, strange, and often unsettling, with puzzles that don’t always play by...

Game Over is an abandoned side scrolling shooter/platform game designed by Ignacio Ruiz Tejedor, Pedro Sudón Aguilar, developed and released by Dinamic Multimedia in 1988 for DOS. Game Over isn't exactly one of the best gam...

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...

Before Doom became the 3D gore-fest we all know, there was Return to Doom—and no, it has nothing to do with space marines. This 1988 title is more Choose Your Own Adventure than chainsaws and demons. You’ll type in com...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens—it’s the frame rate. Piloting your sleek fi...