Play Return of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom Online

Game Overview

Return of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom is one of those weird, forgotten MS-DOS gems from the mid-90s that somehow managed to be both janky and ahead of its time. You pilot this little spaceship that—get this—actually moves up and down, not just side to side like most shooters back then. The controls take a minute to get used to, but once you do, dodging those pixelated bat swarms feels surprisingly smooth.

The whole thing leans hard into cheesy B-movie vibes, especially in the ridiculous opening cutscene (which, honestly, is funnier than it has any right to be). The shareware version gives you 21 levels to blast through, but if you tracked down the full version back in the day, you got a whopping 65. No idea how anyone actually bought it though—Pop Software basically vanished after briefly resurfacing in the early 2000s. It’s the kind of game that makes you wonder how it even got made in the first place, and that’s part of its charm.

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