abandonware games sorted by popularity

The Fourth Protocol turns Frederick Forsyth's Cold War thriller into a computer strategy and espionage experience where information can be considerably more dangerous than bullets....

Released in 1989 for DOS, Poker Relay (also known as 9 Poker) is less a glamorous casino sim and more a smoky backroom full of pixelated cards and questionable programming. You get...

In Reunion, you return to a solar system that’s moved on without you—like showing up to your own birthday party two centuries late. Your mission? Rebuild civilization, ...

Primal Rage is a 1995 fighting game that replaces traditional martial artists with enormous prehistoric creatures battling for dominance in a post-apocalyptic world. Players choose...

Tomahawk is an early helicopter flight simulation that puts the player behind the controls of a military aircraft and expects them to take the job rather seriously. Navigation, wea...

International Soccer Challenge in 1990 continues the tradition of digital football with a more competitive edge. The pacing is brisk, the mechanics approachable, and the matches of...

From the mind of Michael Crichton comes Amazon, a game that lets you live out your jungle explorer fantasies—without the bugs or dysentery. You’re off to the Amazon to ...

World Games is a collection of unusual sporting events designed to prove that the Olympics did not have a monopoly on strange ways of hurting yourself. Instead of concentrating on ...

WWF Wrestlemania brings the spectacle of professional wrestling to the computer, offering matches built around the stars and larger-than-life personalities of the early WWF era. Ra...

Red Sky at Morning is a 1993 DOS strategy game that places players in a military setting where planning and decision-making are more important than quick reflexes. The game challen...

Mindshadow presents a mysterious adventure in which the protagonist awakens with no memory and must gradually reconstruct his identity by exploring an unfamiliar world. The game co...

Star General is a 1996 turn-based strategy game that takes the familiar mechanics of military campaigns and moves them into a science-fiction setting. Players command futuristic ar...

Traffic department 2192 imagines a future where keeping the streets safe apparently requires considerably more shooting than most traffic departments would recommend. The game comb...

Football Glory (1995, DOS) approaches the beautiful game with a playful smirk and a willingness to bend reality for entertainment’s sake. The players move with exaggerated fl...

UnReal World is a survival experience that takes its premise very seriously, perhaps more seriously than you expected. First released in 1992 and evolving over time, it places you ...

Marathon 2: Durandal builds confidently upon the original by refining the action, expanding the story, and introducing multiplayer features that became legendary among fans. The ca...

Noctis is less of a "game" and more of a meditative ritual performed through DOS interface, with fonts so pixelated they might just be ancient runes. You play as a silent explorer ...

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...

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...

Robot Rascals is a 1987 DOS strategy and puzzle game featuring mischievous robots and a playful science-fiction setting. Players must manage their mechanical characters while solvi...

In Auf Wiedersehen Monty, our favorite marsupial is back, and this time he's taking a very pixelated Eurotrip. Released for Windows XP in 2001, it's a nostalgia-fueled platformer t...

Captain Blood is a space exploration video game released in 1988. It was developed by the French company ERE Informatique, and it was designed by Philippe Ulrich and Didier Bouchon...

Crystal Caves is a bright, cheerful platformer starring Mylo Steamwitz, an entrepreneur whose business plan involves raiding dangerous alien caves for profit. The levels are full o...

By 1992, Vol. 3 wrapped up the trilogy with even more complex scenarios. At this point, the series had become less of a game and more of an interactive textbook—though that&r...

If you liked Betrayal at Krondor, Return to Krondor is that younger cousin who tries real hard to live up to the family name. It's got 3D graphics (for 1998), turn-based combat, an...

Guardians of Infinity: to Save Kennedy is the sort of time-travel adventure that casually suggests you might want to prevent one of the most infamous assassinations in history befo...

Risk is a 1991 Windows 3.x adaptation of the classic board game of global conquest, bringing armies, diplomacy, and questionable strategic decisions to the computer screen. Players...

Wing Commander Academy takes the combat system of the famous series and strips away much of the campaign structure, allowing players to concentrate on what they presumably came for...

The Lost Patrol (1991, DOS) drops you into the brutal jungles of Vietnam, where survival depends on strategy, luck, and maybe divine intervention. You lead a squad of exhausted sol...

Prophecy of the Shadow is a 1992 role-playing game that takes players on a traditional fantasy adventure filled with exploration, combat, and magical mysteries. Players create a ch...