abandonware games sorted by popularity

In Arcade Volleyball (1987), two pixelated figures smack a ball over a net with all the grace of caffeinated stick figures. It's simple, it's bizarre, and it somehow manages to be ...

Astro Fire (1994) is the illegitimate love child of Asteroids and a particularly angry fireworks show. You pilot a tiny ship with a death wish through an endless barrage of asteroi...

In Diggers 2: Extractors, released in 1995, the digging franchise doubled down on strategy while adding a dash of science fiction flair. This time, your miners aren’t just bu...

Forget piracy—China Sea Trader makes hauling porcelain and spices across 19th-century Asia feel like a cutthroat business. It’s part economic sim, part geography lesson...

Eagle's Rider is one of those early ’90s DOS games that feels slightly unhinged in the best possible way. You control a futuristic rider soaring through abstract landscapes, ...

Pyjamarama is an abandoned action adventure game released in 2004 for Windows; it's a remake of the original Pyjamarama. The original is a classic video game developed by Mikr...

Ever dreamed of running a transatlantic zeppelin empire during the golden age of flight? Zeppelin: Giants of the Sky lets you do just that — and it’s every bit as niche...

Aspar GP Master is a 1989 motorcycle racing game that invites you to tear up the track with the same grace and control as a caffeinated squirrel on rollerblades. Loosely inspired b...

Released in 1988 for DOS, this game lets you drive monster trucks across deserts, swamps, and icy wastelands with all the grace of a drunken forklift. It’s less about speed a...

NCSA Mosaic was one of the earliest web browsers to appear on the market. It was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illino...

Before open-world RPGs let you be anyone, Dusk of the Gods made you a literal Viking demigod with a bad temper and worse manners. Released in 1991, it blends Norse mythology with t...

Released in 1982, Deadline is one of Infocom’s classic text adventures, and it doesn’t pull punches. You’re a detective with twelve in-game hours to solve a murde...

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...

Caution: subtlety not included. Blue Angel 69, released in 1989 for DOS, is basically what happens when a programmer tries to mix erotic art with a tile-based puzzle game and ends ...

Constructor is a simulation and strategy video game developed by System 3 and first released in 1997. In the game, players take on the role of a property developer with the goal of...

For flight simulation enthusiasts, EF 2000 was nothing short of a revelation. It offers a deep, realistic portrayal of modern air combat, complete with complex avionics and demandi...

Imagine being the captain of a space freighter crewed entirely by neurotic aliens, each with a personality straight out of a sitcom. That’s Psi 5 Trading Company in a nutshel...

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...

If you’ve ever dreamed of becoming a 19th-century merchant sailing the high seas with a suspiciously optimistic outlook on international trade, 1869 is your jam. It throws yo...

Released in 1992, 3D World Boxing tried its best to bring the sweet science into the third dimension. The result is less Rocky and more “two mannequins in pajamas slap each o...