abandonware games sorted by popularity

Mean Streets (1989) throws you into a gritty sci-fi detective story where neon lights, flying cars, and criminal conspiracies are just part of a normal workday. You play as a priva...

Before Madden became a household name, 1988 gave us this DOS football classic, where plays are drawn like cave paintings and players move like molasses in January. Yet, for its tim...

O-Pong is a 1996 DOS game that takes one of the simplest ideas in video game history and gives it another spin. At its heart, it is a variation on Pong, which means two sides, a ba...

Columbus Discovery (1992, DOS) is a history-flavored point-and-click adventure where you, as a pixelated Christopher Columbus, set sail to "discover" lands that are already very mu...

Pizza Tycoon is a 1994 business simulation that asks a very important question: can you build a pizza empire while dealing with competition, customers, and the occasional questiona...

Italicized title: J-Bird. Long before endless runners and mobile time-wasters became fashionable, this quirky little game asked players to guide a determined bird through a maze-li...

Tapper is what happens when someone gamifies bartending and gives you the reflexes of a caffeinated octopus. You’re a mustachioed bartender juggling multiple counters, pourin...

Eternam is a gloriously strange hybrid of 3D exploration, adventure puzzles, and comedic sci-fi. You play Don Jonzon, a man just trying to enjoy a vacation—only to end up cha...

Xixit is a puzzle game that feels like it is constantly trying to outwit you, presenting challenges that require both logic and a bit of creative thinking. It does not rely on flas...

The Chaos Engine is a wonderfully frantic run-and-gun adventure from the Bitmap Brothers, mixing steampunk imagery with relentless shooting and cooperative action. The setting is s...

Gobliiins throws you into a puzzle adventure where logic is optional and experimentation is mandatory. You control three goblins, each with their own abilities, and the game deligh...

D-Day: The Beginning of the End is not your average “storm the beach” simulator—it’s a grand strategy title that drops you into the nerve-wracking planning ...

With Chess88, you’re entering the elite club of DOS chess nerds who appreciate ASCII art and precision time controls. Compared to its 1981 predecessor, it’s a leap forw...

Shadow Warrior is a 1997 first-person shooter starring Lo Wang, a wisecracking ninja who approaches corporate warfare with a sword, an arsenal of firearms, and a remarkable lack of...

Beetlejuice: Skeletons in the Closet is a video game based on the popular Beetlejuice franchise, which includes a 1988 film directed by Tim Burton and an animated television series...

Ultimate Soccer Manager 2 refines the original formula, adding more depth, more leagues, and a slightly more approachable interface. It still revolves around data, decisions, and d...

Star Control 2 is a 1992 space adventure widely regarded as one of the standout science-fiction games of its era. It expands the original formula into a huge galaxy filled with ali...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Star Trek: First Contact (not to be confused with the later movie) is more puzzle-solving than phaser-firing. You take control of the Enterprise crew as t...

Maupiti Island (1991) is what happens when classic detective fiction meets tropical paranoia. You arrive on a peaceful-looking island for a relaxing vacation, only to discover that...

Gloriana sails into the realm of naval strategy with a focus on historical battles and tactical maneuvering. Ships move with a deliberate pace, and positioning is everything, turni...

Alternate Reality: The City is a role-playing video game developed by Paradise Programming for various platforms including Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, and Commodore 64. It was released ...

Gremlins is what happens when someone decides that cute, chaotic movie creatures should be turned into a game that is slightly less cute and a lot more confusing. In Gremlins, you ...

The Island of Dr. Brain combines adventure-game exploration with a generous collection of educational puzzles, all wrapped in a colorful setting inspired by the classic mad-scienti...

System Shock drops you into a space station run by an AI that has clearly read too many villain manuals and decided to try them all at once. SHODAN, the game’s iconic antagon...

Prehistorik 2 builds on the first game’s formula but smooths out the rough edges. The controls are tighter, the levels more inventive, and the humor dialed up a notch. Once a...

Azalta: Cult of the Raven is what happens when a lone developer says, “I can make an RPG better than Ultima!” and sort of does. Released in 1996, this DOS dungeon crawl...

If you ever wanted to explore endless, procedurally generated tunnels filled with monsters, traps, and the occasional existential crisis, Dungeon Crawl is your kind of misery. Rele...

Goal! is one of those football games that reminds you how far sports simulations have come—and how much fun they were before realism took over. The controls are simple, the p...

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where leather vests are apparently immune to radiation, Bad Blood lets you wander the wasteland deciding whether to be a brute, a brainiac, or a mut...

Executive Suite puts you in the shoes of a corporate leader and asks you to juggle ambition, ethics, and profit, usually with conflicting results. It’s a business simulation ...