Games of the 8-, 16- & 32-bit era
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Catacomb 3-D

TitleCatacomb 3-D
First release1991
Developerid Software
PublisherSoftdisk Publishing
PlatformDOS
Genresaction game, shooter game
Also known asCatacomb 3-D: A New Dimension · Catacomb 3-D: The Descent · Catacombs 3
Players1 player
Co-opNo
Releases
DOS: 1991-11-01

Catacomb 3-D is the third in the Catacomb series of video games, and the first of these games to feature 3D computer graphics. The game was originally published by Softdisk under the Gamer's Edge label, and is a first-person shooter with a dark fantasy setting. The player takes control of the high wizard Petton Everhail, descending into the catacomb of the Towne Cemetery to defeat the evil lich Nemesis and rescue his friend Grelminar. Catacomb 3-D is a landmark title in terms of first-person graphics. The game was released in November 1991 and is arguably the first example of the modern, character-based first-person shooter genre, or at least it was a direct ancestor to the games that popularized the genre. It was released for DOS with EGA graphics. The game introduced the concept of showing the player's hand in the three-dimensional viewpoint, and an enhanced version of its technology was later used for the more successful and well-known Wolfenstein 3D.

Description: TheGamesDB (community-contributed, no licence stated; internal use only)
Facts from TheGamesDB (community-contributed, no licence stated; internal use only); they may contain errors. Developer and publisher names are not in the TheGamesDB dump and are added once resolved. Only retro platforms tracked by this site are listed.
Sources
TheGamesDB (30343) · last updated 2026-07-18 · no licence stated · internal use only
Image credits
Box art (1): Source: TheGamesDB (user-uploaded) · © Softdisk Publishing · internal use only. TheGamesDB page
Screenshots, Logos (3): Source: libretro-thumbnails (upstream libretro-thumbnails (art by developers/publishers; see repo README)) · © Softdisk Publishing · internal use only.
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