Play Sopwith online — the original 1984 DOS game Works — the full original game runs via DOSBox in your browser
Guide updated October 2026 · Runs via DOSBox + WebAssembly
Sopwith — David L. Clark's 1984 biplane game, written at BMB Compuscience in Canada as a demo for their networking hardware. You fly a Sopwith Camel left and right over a scrolling landscape, bombing enemy buildings and shooting down their planes, while landing back at your base to refuel. Press S at the title for single player.
1–5: menu choices · Y / N: answer · ENTER: confirm · SPACE: continue
⌨ Keyboard — for menus & name entry
Controls — what does what
| Action | Keyboard |
|---|---|
| Pull up / push down | , and / |
| Flip over | . |
| Fire | Space |
| Drop bomb | B |
| Throttle | X (faster) and Z (slower) |
| Single player | S at the start |
Runs in your browser tab with DOSBox + WebAssembly — nothing is uploaded. Click the screen to capture input; press Ctrl+F10 to release mouse.
Sopwith is no longer sold anywhere, and its publisher is gone or has left it unsold for decades. It is hosted here on the same footing as the Internet Archive's software collections. That is a practical position, not a legal claim. This page carries no advertising. Provenance: /apps/sopwith/NOTICE.md. Rights holders: it comes down within 48 hours on request.
About Sopwith
Sopwith runs in CGA and is controlled entirely from the keyboard. The controls take a minute to learn: comma and slash pitch the nose, full stop flips the plane, X and Z set the throttle, Space fires and B drops a bomb. Fly too slowly and you stall. Destroy all the enemy buildings to finish a level. The author later released the source code.
How it runs here
This is the original DOS release of Sopwith, unmodified, running in DOSBox compiled to WebAssembly. The whole game is about 1 MB, so it starts within seconds on a normal connection. Sound and music play once you click into the game.
Frequently asked questions
Can I play Sopwith online for free?
Yes. Click Play and the original 1984 DOS version starts in your browser, running in a WebAssembly build of DOSBox. Nothing to install and no account.
Why is Sopwith hosted here?
Sopwith is not sold anywhere today; we checked the stores listed in its provenance note. It is preserved here the way the Internet Archive preserves old software. That is a practical position, not a legal claim. If the rights holder (David L. Clark (author)) asks, it comes down within 48 hours.
Does my progress save?
Saved games persist in this browser between visits, best-effort. Clearing site data removes them.
Can I play on a phone or tablet?
Yes. Touch buttons for the keys Sopwith uses appear under the game on touch devices.
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Want a game like this on your own site?
Sopwith isn't ours to give away — we host it, we didn't write it. But eleven of the games here we did write from scratch, and those are free for anyone to put on their own page: one line of HTML, no account, no permission, no attribution beyond a credit line.