Play James Clavells Shogun Online

Game Overview

Remember when games came on floppy disks and made you read actual paragraphs of text? James Clavell’s Shōgun was one of those—a weird, ambitious MS-DOS mashup where you play as a shipwrecked Englishman trying not to get murdered in 1500s Japan. Half the time you’re negotiating with paranoid warlords, the other half you’re desperately trying to remember which key combination lets you bow properly without offending someone.

The pixelated map feels huge for its time, with different clans you can betray or befriend (usually regret either choice). Combat’s clunky but tense—one wrong move and your entire army trips over their own sandals. What stuck with me was how it actually felt like Clavell’s book, all backstabbing and tea ceremonies with sudden violence. Modern strategy games streamlined this stuff, but there’s something about the janky charm of typing “INSULT DAIMYO” and immediately seeing everything go wrong.

Still holds up if you can tolerate old-school interface quirks. Just save often—seppuku comes unexpectedly.

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