About Blackthorne
Blackthorne is a cinematic platform game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and published by Interplay Productions. It came out on the Super NES in September 1994 and on MS-DOS on December 19, 1994. Ronald Millar Sr. designed it and produced it with Matthew Findley, and Glenn Stafford composed the music. The cover art for the SNES release was drawn by Jim Lee. It is a single-player game.
DOS.Zone’s short description casts you as Kyle Blackthorne, a warrior seeking revenge in a dark fantasy world. That is about all the listing says about the plot, so the rest of the story is left for the game to tell.
Blackthorne kept turning up on new systems. A Sega 32X version with additional content, ported by Paradox Development and published by Sega, arrived in 1995, followed by Classic Mac OS in 1996 and the Game Boy Advance in 2003. In 2013 Blizzard released the game for free on its Battle.net PC client, and in February 2021, for the company’s 30th anniversary, it came back on the Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One as part of the Blizzard Arcade Collection. Blizzard, now part of Microsoft, owns it today.
How it runs in your browser
Clicking Play sends you to dos.zone in a new tab. There the site’s js-dos player, an open-source build of DOSBox made for browsers, boots an emulated PC and runs the original MS-DOS release. DOS.Zone serves the files, so you skip the installer, need no copy of your own and don’t sign up for anything. The site carries no ads.
The listing tags Blackthorne as a platformer and action game for the IBM PC and gives it 5 from 4 player reviews. It doesn’t mention how saving is handled, so check DOS.Zone’s page if you plan to come back to a run later.
Controls and devices
You play the MS-DOS version from the keyboard. DOS.Zone hasn’t posted a key list for it, so open the game’s own options or setup screens to see the layout, then click into the emulator window so your keystrokes register.
DOS.Zone puts virtual on-screen controls on phones, but a platformer designed for a keyboard is more comfortable on a desktop or laptop. Touchscreen play is untested here, and so are Chromebooks.
Who it’s for
It suits anyone curious about Blizzard’s early games, players who knew Blackthorne on the Super NES and want to see the PC release, and fans of cinematic platformers in general. Two more games from the studio’s early years run on DOS.Zone: The Lost Vikings, from Silicon & Synapse, the name Blizzard used before, and Rock n’ Roll Racing. If it’s the cinematic style that draws you in, Flashback is a good next step.
Is Blackthorne Free, Safe and Official?
Can I play Blackthorne online for free?
Yes. DOS.Zone runs the 1994 MS-DOS version free in a browser tab, with nothing to install and no account. It isn’t made or endorsed by Blizzard.
Is this the Super NES version of Blackthorne?
No. It’s the MS-DOS version, running in an emulated PC. Blackthorne came out on the Super NES and MS-DOS in 1994, and a Sega 32X version with extra content followed in 1995.
Can I play Blackthorne on my phone?
DOS.Zone shows virtual on-screen controls on phones, but the game was built for a keyboard and we haven’t tested it on a touchscreen. A computer works better.
