Type “freeware” into a search engine next to almost any Apogee Software title and you’ll get a confident yes. The truth is messier. Some of Apogee’s back catalog really was handed to the public for keeps; some of it only ever had a free first episode, with the rest sitting behind a shareware paywall that never went away; and a handful of games that were freeware for years have quietly gone back to being sold, now that 3D Realms is an active commercial studio again rather than a company mostly living off its own history. Before building this list, every title below was checked against its actual release history rather than copied from another abandonware roundup, and a few famous names got cut because they didn’t hold up to that check.
What “freeware” actually means for a 1990s Apogee game
Apogee’s whole business, from Scott Miller’s earliest experiments onward, ran on giving away a taste and charging for the rest — the mechanics of that model are covered in detail in our history of Apogee’s shareware invention. That means almost every Apogee game technically has a “free” component: episode one. For games like Duke Nukem, Duke Nukem II, Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure, and both Blake Stone titles, that first episode is still legitimately distributable today, but the full game is not — Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure and the Blake Stone games are back on sale through GOG and Steam, and Duke Nukem’s rights now sit with Gearbox rather than 3D Realms. None of those four made this list for that reason, even though you’ll see them on plenty of “free DOS games” pages that didn’t check.
What did make the list are games 3D Realms (Apogee’s modern successor) formally released as complete, unrestricted freeware — every episode, no shareware paywall left standing. Most of these releases happened in waves during the 2000s, when 3D Realms started freeing up older titles that weren’t earning meaningful revenue anymore. A few, like Monster Bash, still have only their first episode free as of this writing, which is why they’re absent here too.
That distinction matters more than it might seem, because it changes what “playing the game” actually means. A shareware-only release gives you a real, complete-feeling chunk of content — usually one episode out of three or four — and then stops cold at a purchase wall for the rest. A fully-freed release has no such wall anywhere in it. Every game on this list is the second kind: start to finish, no paywall, no missing episodes.
The Ten
1. Kingdom of Kroz (1987)
Scott Miller’s first game under the Apogee name and the title that proved the episodic shareware model could work at all. It’s a keyboard-driven ASCII dungeon crawler — you move a character symbol through maze-like levels collecting treasure and avoiding monsters represented by other characters — and it looks primitive even by 1987 standards. Historically, though, it’s the whole reason Apogee exists. The entire Kroz series was released as freeware, and its source code went out under the GPL in March 2009, which makes it one of the few games on this list you can also legally study, not just play.
2. Pharaoh’s Tomb (1990)
George Broussard’s debut as a developer, released under his own Micro F/X label before he formally merged his operation into Apogee. It’s a side-scrolling platformer set in an Egyptian tomb, built around collecting treasure while dodging traps and mummies. The level design is simple compared to what Broussard would design a year later, but as a freeware time capsule of where he started before Duke Nukem, it’s worth the twenty minutes it takes to finish.
3. Arctic Adventure (1991)
The spiritual sequel to Pharaoh’s Tomb, also designed by Broussard, swapping Egyptian ruins for icy caverns and penguin-adjacent enemies. It arrived right around the time Broussard’s company merged into Apogee proper, so it sits at an interesting hinge point in his career — later, rougher-edged games than Pharaoh’s Tomb, but still years before Duke Nukem.
4. Monuments of Mars (1991)
Frequently misattributed to Broussard because of its release-year neighbors, Monuments of Mars was actually designed by Todd Replogle — the same Todd Replogle who’d go on to co-create Duke Nukem. It uses a different engine than the Broussard platformers and leans harder into puzzle-like obstacle sequences on a Mars base, which makes it a more mechanically distinct entry than its packaging (and most retrospectives) suggest.
5. Dark Ages (1991)
Robert Allen’s fantasy-themed platformer casts you as a knight cutting through three episodes of medieval-monster-infested levels with a sword and throwing axes. It’s a straightforward action platformer, but the animation work on the knight and enemies is a clear step up in polish from Apogee’s 1990 output. Freed in full in March 2009, the same freeware wave that covered Kroz.
6. Bio Menace (1993)
Designed by Jim Norwood, Bio Menace puts you in the boots of secret agent Snake Logan clearing a small town overrun by a mad scientist’s mutant experiments across three episodes. It’s meaner and more violent than Apogee’s earlier platformers — closer in tone to Duke Nukem than to Pharaoh’s Tomb — with a wider arsenal and more aggressive enemy placement. Later resurfaced in a lightly revised, lower-gore form as Alien Carnage for a family-oriented compilation, but the original Bio Menace freeware release is the version worth playing.
7. Major Stryker (1993)
Designed by Allen H. Blum III — later a level designer on Doom and Quake at id Software — Major Stryker is a vertically-scrolling shoot-’em-up, a genre Apogee touched far less often than side-scrolling platformers. Power-up management and screen-filling enemy waves are the whole game, and it holds up as one of the more mechanically distinct entries on this list simply because nothing else here plays like it. Re-released as freeware in March 2006.
8. Stargunner (1996)
A late-era Apogee release, developed by WizardWorks rather than in-house, Stargunner is another shoot-’em-up but a far more ambitious one than Major Stryker — multi-directional scrolling, a persistent upgrade economy between missions, and noticeably more detailed VGA art befitting its mid-90s release date. It’s the newest game on this list by three years and it shows.
9. Beyond the Titanic (1986) and Supernova (1987)
These predate Apogee’s shareware breakthrough entirely — they’re Scott Miller’s earliest published text adventures, released under the “Apogee Software Productions” banner before Kroz’s episodic model made the company real money. Both were freed in 1998. Neither is essential playing today, but if you want to see exactly what wasn’t working before Miller reinvented his own distribution model, they’re a genuinely useful before-and-after.
10. The Thor Trilogy, Word Whiz, and Trivia Whiz (1988–1989)
Apogee’s least-remembered corner: a maze game and two trivia titles from the company’s earliest, pre-Kroz period, freed together in December 2005. They’re minor by any measure, included here mainly because they round out a genuinely complete picture of what “everything Apogee ever made” covers — most top-10 lists skip straight from Kroz to the platformers and pretend this stretch of the catalog doesn’t exist.
Comparison at a Glance
| Game | Year | Genre | Designer | Freed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kingdom of Kroz | 1987 | ASCII dungeon crawler | Scott Miller | 2009 (also open source) |
| Pharaoh’s Tomb | 1990 | Platformer | George Broussard | 2000s wave |
| Arctic Adventure | 1991 | Platformer | George Broussard | 2000s wave |
| Monuments of Mars | 1991 | Platformer/puzzle | Todd Replogle | 2000s wave |
| Dark Ages | 1991 | Action platformer | Robert Allen | March 2009 |
| Bio Menace | 1993 | Run-and-gun platformer | Jim Norwood | 2000s wave |
| Major Stryker | 1993 | Vertical shooter | Allen H. Blum III | March 2006 |
| Stargunner | 1996 | Multi-directional shooter | WizardWorks | 2000s wave |
How to Actually Work Through This List
- Start with Kingdom of Kroz if you want the historical starting point, but don’t expect it to hold up as a game — treat it as fifteen minutes of context before moving to something more developed.
- If you only have time for one, make it Dark Ages or Bio Menace. Both show a clear step up in animation and level design polish over Apogee’s earliest 1990–91 output, without demanding the multi-hour commitment of Stargunner.
- Play Pharaoh’s Tomb and Arctic Adventure back to back rather than separately — they’re by the same designer a year apart, and the improvement between them is more visible in direct comparison than in isolation.
- Save Stargunner for last. It’s the newest and most mechanically developed game here, and jumping straight to it first tends to make everything else on this list feel more primitive than it deserves.
- Don’t skip Major Stryker just because shoot-’em-ups are a smaller part of Apogee’s reputation than platformers — it’s the one game on this list that plays nothing like the other nine, which makes it worth the twenty minutes even if the genre isn’t normally your thing.
What These Ten Actually Ask of DOSBox
All ten are light enough that DOSBox’s default cycle settings handle them without adjustment — none of these were built for hardware anywhere near what a modern emulated CPU can throw at them. If a platformer’s animation looks too fast or jittery, drop cycles to somewhere around 3000–5000 rather than leaving it on “max.” For full setup steps, including drive mounting and sound configuration, our DOSBox guide covers it from a blank install.
Questions Before You Go Downloading All Ten
Is Duke Nukem legally free?
Only the first episode. The full three-episode game remains commercial, and the Duke Nukem IP itself now belongs to Gearbox rather than 3D Realms, which complicates any future freeware release further.
Why isn’t Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure on this list?
It was freeware for years but is currently sold again through GOG and other digital storefronts, so it no longer meets the “complete game, no restrictions” bar this list uses.
Are these downloads safe?
Stick to 3D Realms’ own site or established preservation archives rather than random file-hosting mirrors, and you’re getting the same files the original publisher released.
Do any of these need special DOSBox configuration?
No — all ten run comfortably on default settings. None were originally built for hardware fast enough to need cycle limiting beyond DOSBox’s defaults.
Which one is the best starting point if I’ve never played any Apogee game?
Dark Ages or Bio Menace — both are more mechanically developed than the 1990–91 Broussard platformers, and both are short enough to finish in an evening.
If You Want More
This list deliberately stops at fully-freed games. If you’re open to titles where only the first episode is free — which still means hours of legitimate playtime at no cost — our broader free DOS games roundup covers that wider net, Apogee and otherwise.