Deathbringer is a 1991 side scrolling action game developed by Oxford Digital Enterprises and published by Empire that was released for the Amiga, DOS, and Atari ST. A group of evil wizards plot to enslave the entire world,[2] but are repeatedly stopped by Karn the Barbarian.

[1][3][4] The player takes the role of Karn the Barbarian who wields the eponymous sword Deathbringer, and seeks to defeat a group of evil wizards.

[2][5][1] Deathbringer has nonlinear map design:[3] the player starts in the middle of each given level, and may move left or right to progress towards the boss.

[1] Deathbringer's music was produced out-of-house by Angus Murray, who was chosen after submitting a demo tape to Oxford Digital.

ST Format criticized Deathbringer's gameplay as repetitive, summarizing it as "a matter of moving towards the next [level], killing numerous creatures on the way", expressing that the difficulty of the monsters and the landscapes are "about the only things that change", further stating that 'it doesn't have much to it'.

[6] German gaming magazine Power Play gave the DOS version of Deathbringer an overall score of 61%, praising its "fantastic" music, "fast" parallax scrolling and "bright & colorful" graphics, but criticized its 'unoriginal' gameplay.

The One praised its "superb" graphics as its strongest feature, calling its parallax scrolling "one of the best seen on the ST", and its sprites and backgrounds "extremely detailed".

The One praised Deathbringer's soul meter mechanics, as well as its nonlinear map design, comparing it to Out Run, but criticized the lack of visual damage when fighting opponents as 'unatmospheric'.