abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1990, LHX Attack Chopper places players inside the cockpit of advanced military helicopters across a variety of combat missions. Blending flight simulation with accessi...

Never mind is a 1989 DOS game whose title sounds like the developers briefly remembered they had a deadline and decided to release the game anyway. Beneath the wonderfully casual n...

In 1998, Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War decided the world needed fewer corridors and more cosmic dogfights. Instead of bumping into walls like a drunken astronaut, you&rs...

Grandmaster Chess is not here to hold your hand, compliment your moves, or pretend that losing is part of the fun. In Grandmaster Chess, you are up against a computer that takes it...

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a criminal economist in 1980s New York, Drug Wars has your fix—pun intended. This early DOS classic throws you into t...

You don’t need to hate spiders to fear Arachnophobia (1991), but it helps. Based on the movie of the same name, it tasks you with exterminating wave after wave of creepy craw...

If Street Rod was a rockabilly rebel, Street Rod 2 (1991, DOS) is its cooler, leather-jacket-wearing cousin. Everything’s bigger, badder, and more polished. The cars roar wit...

Cultures is a charming real-time strategy game about building a Viking settlement from the ground up. You’ll manage resources, assign jobs, and watch your villagers go about ...

Often hailed as the best of the trilogy, Star Trail doubles down on everything its predecessor attempted—and somehow makes it all smoother. The world feels richer, the quests...

IndyCar Racing is a racing simulation video game developed by Papyrus Design Group and published by Virgin Interactive. Released in 1993 for MS-DOS, it marked a significant step fo...

Released in 2003, Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader blends classic role-playing mechanics with a richly imagined alternate history where magic and mythology reshape medieval Europe...

Mortal Kombat 3 expands the series with new fighters, faster combat, additional mechanics, and an increasingly elaborate mythology surrounding Earthrealm and its many supernatural ...

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...

Stargate is a 1983 DOS game inspired by the science-fiction concept of portals connecting distant worlds. The game presents an early computer interpretation of space travel and exp...

If Saturday-morning cartoons and B-movies fused into a pixelated arcade blast, you’d get Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters. This action shooter throws you onto a d...

Shadows Over Riva caps the trilogy with a confident stride. The graphics receive a welcome upgrade, the atmosphere takes a darker turn, and the narrative leans heavily into detecti...

Banner Mania is a DOS graphics utility devoted to the surprisingly important art of making banners, signs, headings, and other large pieces of text. Before modern desktop publishin...

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...

Blake Stone: Planet Strike picks up where the first left off — more aliens, more guns, and more corridors that all look suspiciously alike. Released in 1994 for DOS, it&rsquo...

Grand Monster Slam takes tennis, removes anything resembling normal human athletes, and replaces them with creatures that look like they escaped a fever dream. In Grand Monster Sla...

Based on the French comic series, The Quest for the Time-bird (1989, DOS) offers a fantasy adventure full of personality, odd creatures, and enough lore to fill a small library. Th...

Fleet Sweep takes the high drama of naval warfare and filters it through early-80s minimalism. Think less cinematic spectacle and more abstract tension as you maneuver through trea...

Van Buren is the codename for the ambitious Fallout 3 project that Black Isle Studios was developing before Interplay cancelled it, leaving behind one of gaming's great “what if?...

Think of Aldo's Assault as what happens when Mario forgets his plumber license and joins a bootleg army. This 1991 DOS gem throws you into a side-scrolling frenzy of ladders, barre...

Xenon, released in 1988, was a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by The Bitmap Brothers. Xenon was initially released for the Commodore 64, and later, it was p...

WitchavenRL takes the fantasy combat of Witchaven and gives it a modern roguelike treatment, creating an experience where exploration and fighting are mixed with unpredictable enco...

Released in 1997, Extreme Assault is a bold and ambitious hybrid that blends flight simulation with ground combat in a futuristic setting. You pilot advanced military hardware acro...

You thought running a government was hard? Try doing it with a smug civil servant and a budget crisis every five minutes. In Yes, Prime Minister, you play as Jim Hacker, the PM him...

Army Men 2 doubles down on everything from the first game - more weapons, more plastic carnage, more trips to “The Real World” where you fight in bathtubs and backyards...

Pack-Man is a 1983 clone of the famous maze classic, delivering familiar arcade excitement with its own interpretation of the legendary formula. Players collect dots, avoid determi...