Catacomb Abyss

The gameplay borrows many elements from Catacomb 3-D. The player searches for keys in a maze to unlock doors that grant access to the next level. To aid navigation, each area within a level has a short description, which is displayed on the interface. The player can shoot magic missiles from its hand to eliminate enemies and to destroy breakable wall segments.

The game contains sixteen regular levels. The final level contains instructions to warp to any level, including three secret levels. Whereas the levels in Catacomb 3-D consisted of mostly dungeons, the levels in Catacomb Abyss bring more varied environments. There are outdoor levels with lightning, an ancient aqueduct flooded with water and hellish corridors with pulsing walls.

In the previous game, the wizard Petton Everhail went on a quest through the catacombs to rescue his friend Grelminar from the evil mage Nemesis. Eventually the protagonist succeeded in killing Nemesis. After the death of their master, the minions of Nemesis construct a mausoleum near the Towne Cemetery to honor him. Soon after the construction of the mausoleum, evil forces spread across the land.

In response to the terror, the local townspeople hire Petton Everhail to once again go on a quest against the forces of Nemesis. The protagonist starts his quest in the town cemetery, before descending into the crypts deep beneath the mausoleum.

The Catacomb series started when programmer John Carmack developed Catacomb, a two-dimensional game with a top-down perspective for the Apple II. In 1990 Carmack joined Softdisk, a software company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. There he worked on a bi-monthly disk magazine called Gamer's Edge, which was started by game developer John Romero in August. Customers could subscribe to Gamer's Edge to receive one or more PC games from Softdisk at a two-month interval.

These games were developed fulltime by John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack and Lane Roathe, with some additional game and level design by Tom Hall. For the first issue of Gamer's Edge, John Carmack ported his Catacomb game to DOS. In September, Carmack developed an efficient way to rapidly side-scroll graphics. John Romero immediately saw great potential in this new technology.

American computer game magazine Computer Gaming World published a review in May 1993. It calls The Catacomb Abyss "very enjoyable" despite the "minimal" EGA graphics and sound. The review warns that some gamers might experience motion sickness due to the game's 3-D smooth scrolling technique.

British video game magazine PC Zone also noted in May 1993 that the 3D graphics do not scroll as smooth compared to Wolfenstein 3D. On long playthroughs this can become irritating, but the reviewer also states that the gameplay in the Catacomb series is better compared to Wolfenstein 3D. They praised "the atmosphere of real tension" in the games and considered Catacomb Abyss a good showcase of what shareware games can offer.

Following the publication of the Catacomb series on GOG, Flat Rock Software decided to open-source these games under the GPL license in 2014. This enabled programmers to port the source code of Catacomb Abyss to other operating systems. The source port Reflection Keen, later renamed to ReflectionHLE, allows gamers to play Catacomb Abyss on Microsoft Windows, Linux, MacOS, AmigaOS and Android.

Another source port for Catacomb Abyss called CatacombGL was introduced in 2018, which offers hardware accelerated rendering via OpenGL. CatacombGL initially targeted Microsoft Windows. Support for native Linux was added in 2022.