Play Flashback in Your Browser

About Flashback

Flashback is a cinematic platformer that Delphine Software developed and U.S. Gold published for the Amiga in November 1992. In the United States it was sold as Flashback: The Quest for Identity. Paul Cuisset directed, wrote and designed it and did part of the programming. He had earlier created the adventure game Future Wars with Éric Chahi. Jean Baudlot, Raphaël Gesqua and Fabrice Visserot wrote the music, and it is a single-player game.

According to DOS.Zone’s description, you play Conrad B. Hart, an agent who must escape from a dystopian future after being captured by alien forces. The description points to the game’s fluid animation and sci-fi story, and to the way it mixes exploration and puzzle-solving with fights against enemies across its levels.

The game spread to many systems. Versions for the Mega Drive/Genesis, MS-DOS, Acorn Archimedes and Super NES arrived in 1993, and CD-ROM editions for the Sega CD, 3DO, CD-i, MS-DOS, Macintosh and FM Towns followed in 1994 and 1995, along with an Atari Jaguar cartridge. Tiertex developed several of these, including the MS-DOS CD-ROM release. A Dreamcast version appeared in 2017, Flashback: Remastered Edition reached the Switch, PlayStation 4 and Windows in 2018, and an Evercade cartridge based on the Mega Drive version came out in 2023. Microids holds the rights today.

How it runs in your browser

Press Play and DOS.Zone’s Flashback page opens in a new tab. The site runs the MS-DOS version in js-dos, its open-source DOSBox port for browsers, which emulates a PC of the period inside the tab. Every file comes from DOS.Zone, so there’s no installer, no disk of your own to find and no account to register. DOS.Zone doesn’t run ads.

The listing doesn’t say whether it carries the 1993 MS-DOS release or the later CD-ROM edition. It shows a rating of 5 from 3 player reviews and gives no details about saving, so look over the page before a long session.

Controls and devices

Flashback’s MS-DOS version is played from the keyboard. DOS.Zone doesn’t list the keys, so check the game’s own options before you set off, and click inside the emulator once it has loaded so it receives what you type.

Phone browsers get DOS.Zone’s virtual on-screen controls, but this is a keyboard game and a desktop or laptop suits it better. We haven’t tried a touchscreen, and Chromebooks haven’t been confirmed.

Who it’s for

It suits players who first guided Conrad through the game in the 1990s and want the PC version back without old disks or a DOS setup, and newcomers curious about the cinematic platformers of that decade. Out of This World, Éric Chahi’s 1991 game for Delphine, runs on DOS.Zone as well, and so does Prince of Persia. For the same style a few years later, try Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee.