The best espionage games

Night Hawk: F-117A Stealth Fighter is a 1991 flight simulation centered on one of the most famous aircraft in modern military aviation. Players take control of the F-117A and under...

Impossible Mission 2 proves that espionage is mostly about jumping carefully and avoiding suspicious furniture. Released in 1988 for DOS, this sequel expands on the original's plat...

Infiltrator 2 basically asks: “What if we took everything from the first game and doubled down?” The result is a sequel that’s larger, louder, and just as gleeful...

Megafortress places players inside the cockpit of a sophisticated B-52 bomber, combining realistic flight simulation with large-scale military operations. Navigation, fuel manageme...

KGB delivers one of the most ambitious espionage adventures of the early 1990s, placing players inside a complex web of political intrigue during the final years of the Soviet Unio...

Part Cold War thriller, part adventure game, part submarine simulator, Code-Name: Iceman is a Sierra title that demands patience, precision, and a deep respect for diplomacy and to...

In Countdown, the clock is always ticking—literally. This spy thriller adventure drops you into a web of international intrigue, shady characters, and puzzles that don’...

Released in 1993, Lethal Tender combines platform action with a satirical storyline centered on greed, money, and determined heroes. Players jump through colorful levels while coll...

Red Storm Rising is a submarine simulation video game developed and published by MicroProse in 1988, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond. The game is s...

Released in 1986, James Bond 007: Goldfinger adapted one of the most beloved Bond stories into a text-heavy adventure experience. Rather than relying on fast reflexes, players must...

The Fourth Protocol is a 1985 interactive fiction video game inspired by Frederick Forsyth's 1984 Cold War spy novel of the same name. Developed by the Electronic Pencil Company an...

Metal Gear introduces the legendary Solid Snake to computer players in a stealth adventure built around infiltration rather than brute force. Sneaking past guards, gathering intell...

Before James Bond was saving the world with cinematic flair, he was crashing pixelated helicopters in 007: License to Kill. This top-down action game takes the movie and crams it i...

Conflict is a turn-based war game where you get to play Commander-in-Chief and yell at your virtual generals when things go wrong (which they often do). It's part military sim, par...

Back in 1989, David Wolf: Secret Agent tried really hard to make you feel like James Bond. You get car chases, fistfights, and enough cheesy dialogue to fill an action movie marath...

Inspector Gadget: Global Terror! takes everyone’s favorite bionic klutz and hands him a globe-trotting mission to stop M.A.D.—which is roughly as risky as giving a todd...

Navy Seal is a 1989 action game that puts the player in the boots of an elite military operative and sends them into dangerous missions where stealth, combat, and quick reactions a...

The Cardinal of the Kremlin is an abandoned simulation game involving espionage, politics and govern management set in the cold war years. It was designed by Kenneth Rothschil...

Operation Stealth is a 1990 adventure game that combines international intrigue, espionage, and the sort of dangerous missions where the protagonist probably should have taken a qu...

Based on the James Bond film of the same name, James Bond 007: A View to a Kill arrived in 1985 and delivered a mixture of action and adventure sequences inspired by the movie. Pla...

The Third Courier is an abandoned (atypical) adventure / role playing game set in Berlin during the cold war era and, of course, it's a spy game. The Third Courier was developed by...

In 1986, Hacker arrived with a premise that felt thrillingly dangerous at the time: you, alone, tapping into secret computer systems and uncovering conspiracies. No explosions, no ...

Midwinter 2: Flames of Freedom expands the original's ambitious open-world design with a larger setting, new vehicles, more varied missions, and a broader struggle for freedom. Pla...

Floor 13 hands you the keys to a shadowy government office and suggests you protect national stability by any means necessary. It’s part strategy, part moral dilemma, and ent...