Play Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in Your Browser

About Warcraft: Orcs & Humans

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is the game that started the Warcraft fantasy franchise. It is a real-time strategy game that Blizzard Entertainment developed and published itself in North America, while Interplay Productions handled the European release. The MS-DOS version came out in North America on November 15, 1994, and in Europe in 1995, and a Mac OS version followed in early 1996. Sold-Out Software re-released the MS-DOS version in 2002.

Patrick Wyatt directed the game and produced it with Bill Roper, and Gregory Alper composed the music. As the title says, the war is between orcs and humans, and the game supports both single-player and multiplayer modes. Blizzard, now owned by Microsoft, still holds the rights. The series carried on with Warcraft II and Warcraft III, and both of those can be played in a browser as well.

How it runs in your browser

When you press Play, the game’s DOS.Zone page opens in a new tab. The site runs the original MS-DOS release inside js-dos, an open-source version of DOSBox made for browsers, which emulates an old PC in the tab. Everything the game needs is loaded from DOS.Zone, so you don’t install anything, provide your own copy or register. There are no ads on DOS.Zone.

The listing is titled WarCraft: Orcs & Humans, filed under strategy and real-time strategy for the IBM PC, and it holds a rating of 5 from 87 player reviews. DOS.Zone hasn’t written a description for it, so details such as which version is included or how saving works aren’t spelled out; check the page itself if that matters to you.

There’s also a multiplayer room for the game on DOS.Zone, at dos.zone/multiplayer/warcraft. That’s the place to go to set up a match with someone else. We haven’t tested how well online games run, so treat it as something to try rather than a sure thing.

Controls and devices

You play Warcraft: Orcs & Humans with a keyboard and mouse. After the game loads, click inside the emulator window so it receives your input. The key layout isn’t listed on the host’s page, so check the game’s own menus.

Phones get virtual on-screen controls from DOS.Zone, but this game was built for a mouse and keyboard, and you’ll get on better with a desktop or laptop. Chromebooks haven’t been confirmed.

Who it’s for

It suits players who started with this first Warcraft in the 1990s and want to see it again without setting up DOSBox, and anyone who knows the later games and is curious where the series began. Playing the three games in order is an easy way to see how Blizzard’s real-time strategy grew from 1994 onward, and all of them run in a browser tab.