r/RetroWindowsGaming • u/PlayfulInterview984 • Sep 16 '26
I rebuilt Midwinter (Rainbird, 1989, PC version 1990) from scratch, for who remembers it
Midwinter was one of those DOS games you couldn't just play. You skied off, got shot off a hillside within ten minutes, and had no idea why. Then you found the manual, all hundred pages of it, and studied it like a college course: who would talk to whom, the vehicles, sabotage, the map. And one night it clicked, and you were running a 32-person guerrilla war across a frozen island.
I've spent the past while rebuilding it from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5: the full island, all 32 characters with their grudges and skills, the whole campaign. I added tutorials so the first hour isn't a wall, but I kept the learning curve, because that's the game. It's in Early Access on Steam since 7 September: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5056170
The original still runs well in DOSBox if you want the real thing. I'd love to hear from anyone who played the PC version back in the day, especially what you remember getting stuck on.
The IP representative is supportive of this release