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MS-DOS is getting a new game in the form of Retro City Rampage 486

Steep system requirements include an Intel 486, 3.7 MB of HD space, and 4MB of RAM.

MS-DOS is getting a new game in the form of Retro City Rampage 486

If there's one thing that's wrong with PC gaming these days, it's that it's far too easy. Steam collections? Automated driver updates? Graphical user interfaces? Pah! Frankly, if a PC game doesn't require a Sound Blaster 16 card and arrive on 25 floppy disks, then I don't want know. Fortunately, there's one developer out there that gets it. Vblank Entertainment is bringing Retro City Rampage—its homage to 8-bit games and Grand Theft Auto—over to the greatest gaming OS of all time: MS-DOS.

Yes, the operating system released all the way back in 1981 is getting a brand new(ish) game. Retro City Rampage 486 is a port of Retro City Rampage DX, an enhanced version of the game featuring a story mode, arcade challenges, and free roaming. But before you get too excited, best check those system requirements. You'll need an Intel 486, a whopping 3.7 MB of hard drive space, and 4MB of RAM in order to get up and running.

Pretty steep, I know, but on the plus side, if you already own a copy of either the Windows or Mac version of Retro City Rampage, you can pick up the new port for free.

Interestingly, MS-DOS isn't the only older platform that Vblank has ported Retro City Rampage to. Back in 2013, the developer brought a prototype version of the game over to the NES, which it promised was "100% hardware-accurate" to the specifications of Nintendo's first home console. That proved to be quite the challenge considering the NES only had 10KB of RAM, 32KB of program ROM, 256KB of background graphics ROM, and 4KB of sprite graphics ROM.

While the MS-DOS version isn't anywhere near as limited in terms of resources, it remains to be seen just what corners have been cut in order to get the game working. Unfortunately, Retro City Rampage 486 hasn't been given a release date, but that should give us some time to dig out an old 486 (or boot up DOSBox), and brush up on those command line installs.

Channel Ars Technica