abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before the shades, the muscles, and the one-liners, Duke Nukem was just a guy in a 2D platformer trying to save the world from an evil scientist. It’s bright, fast, and glori...

Strap into your Spitfire, because Aces Over Europe (1993, DOS) is here to show you that flying over 1940s Europe was as dangerous as it was polygonal. As a follow-up to Aces of the...

Boulder Dash II is the sequel to the original Boulder Dash game. It was released in 1985 and follows the same basic gameplay mechanics as its predecessor while introducing new leve...

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...

Ah, BurgerTime. The game that asked the important question: what if we made a platformer about a tiny chef assembling giant burgers while being chased by sentient hot dogs? You gui...

Dragon Lord (1990) is what happens when you let a fantasy novelist design a strategy game. You’re a would-be sorcerer trying to raise dragons, manage villages, and conquer la...

Industrial machinery might not sound thrilling, yet Magnetic Crane transforms operating a giant crane into a surprisingly engaging puzzle experience. Your task is to move cargo eff...

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned brings Gabriel Knight back for another wonderfully peculiar supernatural investigation, this time taking him to the Frenc...

Karnov is a classic side-scrolling action arcade game developed by Data East in 1987. The game features a unique protagonist named Jinborov Karnovski, or "Karnov", a fire-breathing...

Before there was Capitalism 2, there was Capitalism Plus, which basically took the original and added a few bells, whistles, and ways to fail spectacularly. It’s like being h...

Wrath of the Demon is a fantasy action game that clearly believes subtlety is overrated. You play a warrior battling through a hostile world packed with monsters, traps and enemies...

Dr. Sbaitso is one of the more memorable curiosities from the early era of computer speech software. Developed by Creative Labs, it presented itself as a virtual doctor capable of ...

A Dudley Dilemma (1988) sounds like the title of a children’s book, but it’s actually a very British text adventure for DOS where the stakes are politely quirky and mil...

Ready to guess wildly about the cost of household objects from the comfort of a DOS screen? The Price is Right (1990, DOS) brings the TV game show to your keyboard with a mixture o...

Darkstone tried to ride the Diablo wave in 1999, and honestly, it didn’t do a bad job. With 3D graphics (impressive for the time) and a soundtrack that takes itself way too s...

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 ...

Released in 1992, Sexy Droids ventured into science fiction with a mixture of adult humor and futuristic imagery. The game embraced its unusual concept wholeheartedly, presenting s...

Arctic Adventure is the sequel nobody asked for to Pharaoh's Tomb, except this time you’re freezing your butt off. As Nevada Smith (not a typo, it’s his real name), you...

Norton Editor 2 is a text editor built for the DOS environment, aimed at users who needed something more capable than a basic command-line editor without requiring an enormous word...

Warhammer 40000: Chaos Gate brings the grim darkness of the far future into a turn-based tactical battlefield where subtle diplomacy has been replaced by heavily armed Space Marine...

Part action-RPG, part body-horror fairy tale, Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall (1995) is the game where you slowly transform into an insect and, somehow, that’s not even the...

Outbound is a 2001 adventure game set in a world of science fiction, exploration, and strange environments that are considerably less welcoming than the average tourist destination...

Chicago, 1920s. You’ve got a tommy gun, a fedora, and a score to settle. Capone is part gangster sim, part shooting gallery, and part fever dream. The graphics are muddy, the...

Conquest of the New World (Deluxe Edition) invites you to discover new lands, build colonies, and occasionally “accidentally” wipe out entire civilizations while smilin...

Elegant in concept yet famously demanding in execution, Marble Madness asks players to guide a vulnerable marble through twisting obstacle courses filled with hazards determined to...

Murder Club is a mystery adventure that places players in the middle of a complicated investigation filled with suspects, clues, and enough suspicious behavior to make trusting any...

Little-known but oddly captivating, Kurtan (1990, DOS) feels like someone’s ambitious homebrew fantasy experiment gone right. You play a wandering warrior exploring a pixelat...

Interactive fiction meets comic book in this spin-off, where you follow a fantasy story through illustrated panels and scripted choices. Zork Quest: Assault on Egreth Castle feels ...

Stronghold is a medieval strategy game that puts you in charge of castles, armies, and enough political trouble to make a peaceful life in the countryside seem terribly overrated. ...

Clyde is back—and this time, he's mad. Clyde's Revenge brings more levels, more traps, and slightly less mercy. Everything’s cranked up: the challenge, the mazes, the p...