abandonware games sorted by popularity

The Legacy: Realm of Terror is a first-person view survival horror RPG set in the modern world, in a haunted house. The Legacy was developed by Magnetic Scrolls and published by Mi...

Ever wondered what The Flintstones would look like if they got into illegal street racing? BC Racers is exactly that, with stone-age muscle cars, power-ups that make zero sense, an...

Epic (1992, DOS) lives up to its name—or at least tries very, very hard. It’s a space combat game bursting with ambition, tossing you into dogfights that feel massive e...

Journey: The Quest Begins is an ambitious role-playing adventure from 1989 that mixes exploration, character development, and fantasy storytelling. Players travel through a world f...

Star Trek: Starfleet Command (1999, Windows XP) is a dream come true for anyone who memorized warp core schematics. It’s a tactical space combat simulator that rewards patien...

The original Crusader: No Remorse sets the tone for the series: brutal, explosive, and unapologetically action-focused. You’re a rogue operative taking on a dystopian corpora...

After publishing a plethora of Gold Box titles, SSI decided to release a fantasy RPG based on the Forgotten Realms scenarios of Dungeons & Dragons where the player could create...

Iron Blood (1996, DOS) is the kind of fighting game that makes you wonder if robots really need martial arts lessons. The story is wafer-thin—something about futuristic warri...

Knights of Legend is a tactical role-playing game (RPG) released by Origin Systems in 1989 for MS-DOS, the Apple II, and the Commodore 64. Known for its complex gameplay and strate...

Dune Generations was a canceled 3D MMO strategy game set in the Dune universe that was never published. Dune Generations was in development by Cryo Interactive ...

Released in the mid-’80s, Earthly delights is an odd, almost poetic little DOS title that feels more like an experiment than a traditional game. It blends abstract visuals wi...

By the time Laser Squad reached DOS in 1992, its reputation as a superb tactical strategy game was already well deserved. Every mission demands thoughtful positioning, careful use ...

Hardball 3 builds on its predecessor with a noticeable sense of confidence, as if it knows it has already proven itself and now wants to show off a little. The graphics are improve...

Aquanoid (1992) takes the classic Breakout formula and throws it underwater, because bricks are apparently much more intimidating when they're wet. You control a paddle, you bounce...

Bolo Ball is a DOS game from the mid-1990s. It features a physics-based gameplay where the objective is to knock opponent balls out of an arena. When you start the game, you find y...

If you've ever stared at a camel and thought, "What if it shot lasers and had a personal grudge against humanity?", Attack of the Mutant Camels is the fever dream you've been waiti...

Highway Hunter combines driving and shooting in a way that feels both chaotic and entertaining. The concept is simple, survive while dealing with whatever the road throws at you, b...

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 contraption...

Released in 1988, Lane Mastodon vs. the Blubbermen is one of those wonderfully odd DOS adventures that seems determined to surprise players every few minutes. Starring the delightf...

In Scapeghost (1989), you’re not just dead—you’re also on the clock. As police officer Alan Chance, recently murdered and newly spectral, you’ve got one las...

Borland Reflex was a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Borland International, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Reflex was rele...

Riven is the sequel to the highly successful and critically acclaimed adventure game, Myst. Developed by Cyan Worlds, Riven was released in 1997 and continues the narrative establi...

Seek and Destroy was a shoot'em up published by the well known Epic Megagames in 1996 that tried to change the usual shoot'em up gameplay for the better. Instead of wave after wave...

In Command Adventures: Starship (1995, DOS), you’re the captain, the admiral, and occasionally the guy who has to fix the hyperdrive when it’s on fire. This obscure gem...

President Elect: 1988 Edition is a political simulation game developed by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and released in the mid-1980s. The game simulates U.S. presidential elec...