Or maybe they mean (or misinterpret) it was written directly with 386 features in mind (like Doom...remember DOS extenders and protected mode?), not available o

Or maybe they mean (or misinterpret) it was written directly with 386 features in mind (like Doom...remember DOS extenders and protected mode?), not available on the 286 or 8088? A lot of companies were conservative at abandoning older processors. But I don't remember these games being blazingly fast at all, even on Pentiums. Timing bugs did start appearing for some games (Sierra's Quest For Glory 4 is one of the most infamous ones for timing bugs in my head), but I thought these surfaced at least another generation or two later.