abandonware games sorted by popularity

Nuclear War is an abandoned turn-based strategy game designed by Eric Hyman and Jon Van Caneghem. Nuclear War was developed and released by New World Computing in 1989 for Amiga and, later, for DOS, and it's loosely based on a car...

Alien Syndrome (1989) is a top-down shooter where you save hostages, shoot aliens, and scream internally because you’re always out of time. It’s frantic arcade action at its finest—like Contra had a baby with Gau...

Step into the polygonal shoes of Edward Carnby (or Emily Hartwood, if you're feeling bold) in Alone in the Dark, the grandfather of survival horror games. Released in 1992 for DOS, it throws you into a haunted mansion filled with ...

Days of Thunder (1990) is what happens when Hollywood’s love affair with Tom Cruise collides with DOS racing. Based on the movie of the same name, it’s an attempt to capture the adrenaline of NASCAR on a PC that barely...

Commander Keen 3: Keen Must Die! is the kind of title that makes you wonder what this kid did to tick off an entire alien race. After foiling their plans twice, Keen takes the fight to the Vorticon home planet, where enemies are s...

Released in 1988, Legend of the Sword is a graphic adventure that tries to blend epic fantasy storytelling with the puzzle-solving spirit of early point-and-clicks. The result is a game where you juggle an entire party of heroes, ...

If Barbie was mildly passive in her 1992 debut, Barbie Super Model (1993) puts her on the runway—literally. You’ll practice walking, dodging obstacles, and matching outfits because nothing screams "video game challenge...

Combat Chess (1997, Windows XP) takes the cerebral game of kings and adds swords, screams, and shameless violence. Every piece battle-animates into Mortal Kombat-lite fights when you capture another. It's like regular chess, but w...

Batalia (1986) is what happens when war games and spreadsheet programs fall in love. This early DOS strategy title throws you into tactical battles with graphics that would struggle to impress a calculator. But don’t be fool...

With a title that sounds like a deep-sea motivational poster, Big Sea: The Better One Will Win is a maritime strategy game where the stakes are high and the water’s pixelated. Outwit your foes on the high seas while trying t...

A martial arts tournament starring fluffy animals with serious anger issues? Yes, please. Brutal: Paws of Fury is what happens when someone watches too much kung fu cinema and then wonders, “What if a bunny could do a spinni...

Ascii Sector is what happens when someone takes Privateer, removes the graphics, and replaces them with pure ASCII and sheer willpower. It’s open-world space sim meets roguelike: you trade, fight, explore, get stabbed in sha...

Boston Bomb Club (1991, DOS) is a Rube Goldberg fever dream disguised as a puzzle game. Your mission: guide bombs (yes, bombs) along increasingly elaborate tracks using contraptions like rotating tiles, steam pipes, and sheer chao...

Stonekeep is a first-person role-playing game (RPG) developed by Interplay Entertainment. It was released for MS-DOS in 1995 and later for other platforms such as Windows and Macintosh.The game is set in the fantasy world of Brita...

ATAC (1992) is what you get when someone says, “What if we made SimCity, but for waging the War on Drugs?” You play as the head of an anti-narcotics task force, deploying units, tracking smugglers, and launching airstr...

X-Men: Children of the Atom is a fighting video game developed by Capcom and released in arcades in 1994. The game features characters from Marvel Comics' X-Men series, including popular mutants like Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, and...

Dominus (1994) is what happens when a tower defense game and an RPG get thrown into a medieval blender. You’re tasked with defending your castle from wave after wave of enemies, but instead of just building towers, you direc...