abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1995 for DOS, Zorlim's Arcade Volleyball is what happens when someone decides regular volleyball isn’t chaotic enough. Picture stick figures with the agility of c...

Released in 1984, Jumpman is a classic platform game that challenges players to navigate construction sites packed with hazards, ladders, and carefully placed obstacles. The object...

Silent Service 2 builds on the submarine simulation formula with a more detailed representation of underwater warfare. Players command a World War II submarine, navigating patrol a...

Powermonger takes the god-game formula of Populous and gives it teeth. Instead of playing benevolent deity, you’re more like a slightly cranky warlord, sending little soldier...

If adrenaline-fueled car chases aren’t your thing, maybe meticulous Civil War simulations are. Decision at Gettysburg (1990) is a detailed, turn-based strategy game that lets...

Warp Rogue is a later revival of classic roguelike ideas, mixing turn-based exploration with procedural danger and a healthy disregard for the survival prospects of the player. Rel...

Styx is a compact arcade-style adventure built around exploration, hazards, and the sort of unforgiving design that older computer games considered perfectly normal. The action tak...

The Geekwad: Games of the Galaxy is a collection of bizarre mini-games aimed squarely at players who enjoy their arcade action with a generous helping of nonsense. Rather than buil...

Fancy saving a kingdom from impending doom in exactly 100 in-game days? Challenge of the Five Realms (1992) offers just that, blending RPG exploration with a looming deadline and s...

D-Zone is what you’d get if someone blended city-building with military strategy and sprinkled in a dash of chaos. You’re tasked with running a base while fending off a...

Rastan is Conan-the-Barbarian energy distilled into a side-scrolling adventure where your primary verb is “destroy.” The DOS port lacks a bit of arcade sparkle, but the...

Welcome to the skies of World War II, where dogfights are fast, fuel is low, and you probably forgot to raise your landing gear. Battlehawks 1942 (1988) is a flight sim with just e...

Escape from Delirium feels like someone took a pulp adventure novel, dipped it in a bucket of chaos, and fed it to a DOS system. You wake up with amnesia (because of course you do)...

Frankenstein (1994) leans into its gothic inspiration with an earnest devotion to atmosphere. Drawing from Mary Shelley’s tale, it combines adventure elements with a somber m...

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...

Sword of the Samurai is a fascinating blend of strategy, role-playing, and historical adventure set in feudal Japan. Released in 1989, it puts you in the position of a samurai atte...

If Barbie was mildly passive in her 1992 debut, Barbie Super Model (1993) puts her on the runway—literally. You’ll practice walking, dodging obstacles, and matching out...

LHA is one of those utilities that may look humble until you remember how important file compression was in the DOS era. The program is an archiver designed to compress files and b...

Tetris is the kind of game that looks harmless until you realize you’ve been staring at falling blocks for three hours straight. Released in 1987, this deceptively simple puzzle ...

Whale's Voyage is a quirky science-fiction adventure that combines exploration, trading, combat, and a surprisingly large amount of freedom. Despite the title, you are not spending...

In Air Force Commander (1992), you don’t just fly planes - you run the whole air force. Think of it as being a general with a spreadsheet addiction. Assign squadrons, manage ...

Floor 13 hands you the keys to a shadowy government office and suggests you protect national stability by any means necessary. It’s part strategy, part moral dilemma, and ent...

In 1991, DOS gamers were treated to the weirdest parenting simulator ever: Baby Joe in: Going Home. You play as Baby Joe, an infant inexplicably left to crawl through caves, forest...

Welltris takes the familiar falling-block formula and turns it sideways, quite literally. Released in 1989, this Tetris-inspired puzzle game presents a three-dimensional well into ...

Part strategy, part fantasy empire builder, Realms gives you a continent to wrangle and a surprising number of ways to embarrass yourself. You recruit armies, juggle rebellious pop...

Stratego brings the classic board game of hidden armies to the computer, preserving the central trick that makes the original so entertaining: you never quite know what the other s...

Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II continues Kyle Katarn's story while transforming the series into a more ambitious 3D action adventure. Released in 1997, it introduces light...

Dragons of Flame (1989) was SSI’s continuation of the Dragonlance saga, following up on Heroes of the Lance. Like its predecessor, it was a side-scrolling action RPG that tes...

Released in 1987, Lords of Conquest is strategy in its most distilled, no-nonsense form. This is a game that drops you onto a map, hands you control of armies, and essentially says...

Ninja is a 1986 action game that wastes very little time explaining the job description. You are a ninja, there are enemies, and they would prefer that you stop being quite so succ...