What kinds of games are listed on DOS haven?

Updated

DOS haven lists modern DOS games — titles released from 2001 onward, not the classic 1980s and 1990s catalog. The site describes itself as a collection of "21st century DOS games" and currently reports 265 games. If you are looking for original-era commercial DOS releases, this is not that archive; if you want homebrew and indie games that still run on DOS (or under DOSBox), this is the relevant list.

What "modern DOS game" means here

The site's own framing answers the scope question directly: it collects DOS games from the 21st century and encourages people to make new ones. So the defining filter is release date, not genre or publisher. A game qualifies because it was made for DOS after 2000, whether it is a small hobby project or a more ambitious release.

The site also notes why developers still target DOS: it is fun for a certain kind of developer, retro is appealing, and DOSBox makes DOS programs runnable almost anywhere — Windows, Linux, macOS, smartphones, tablets, and Raspberry Pi.

Genres covered

The filter panel on the site lists these genres:

  • Action
  • Adventure
  • Beat'em up
  • FPS
  • Interactive Fiction
  • Platformer
  • Puzzle
  • Racing
  • Roguelike
  • RPG
  • Simulation
  • Sport
  • Strategy
  • Other

That range matters if you are deciding whether the site is worth browsing: it is not a single-genre niche. You can find arcade-style action, text-driven interactive fiction, and slower strategy or simulation titles in the same catalog.

Presentation: graphics vs. textmode

The site separates games by how they display:

  • Graphics — games that draw sprites, tiles, or other visual output.
  • Textmode — games that use DOS text-mode character output rather than a graphical mode.

This is a useful distinction for hardware and emulator setup. Textmode games generally run in almost any DOS environment, while graphics games may depend more on the video mode they target.

Release years available

The year filter runs from 2001 through 2016 in the visible list. That tells you the catalog is weighted toward the earlier part of the modern DOS revival, though the "Last 6 games added" section shows newer entries as well — for example Star Cadre: Team Command (October 2, 2026), FOKOOM (September 7, 2026), and Penult (August 31, 2026). So the year filter and the newest additions are not the same thing: the filter reflects release year, while the front page reflects when a game was added to the site.

New releases and ongoing homebrew

Two signals show the catalog is actively maintained rather than frozen:

  • The "Last 6 games added" list changes, with recent entries dated 2026.
  • The "Latest comments" and "Suggestions" sections include developers announcing their own DOS releases and users requesting additions, such as a comment asking to add Recoil and another noting an October 2026 release.

If your goal is to find something playable rather than to survey the whole list, start with the genre and presentation filters, then check the newest additions for titles that are still being discussed.