Play Battle Chess Online

Battle Chess came out in 1988 for MS-DOS, developed by Interplay Productions. It was one of those games that stood out in an era when many titles were still figuring out how to blend strategy with something more visually engaging. You got a full chess game, but the presentation was what made it memorable.

You control the standard chess army, white or black, with the goal of checkmating your opponent's king. The signature mechanic is the animated combat that triggers whenever one piece takes another; pawns might get stomped by knights, rooks could transform and smash other pieces, and bishops often met dramatic, magical ends. The chess itself follows all the standard rules, so the strategy is genuine, but the pacing slows way down if you choose to watch every capture animation. It feels like playing a straight game of chess that occasionally erupts into a cartoon brawl.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".