abandonware games sorted by popularity

World Tour Tennis turns tennis into a compact computer contest where positioning and timing matter more than having the reflexes of a professional athlete. Players move around the ...

F-16 Combat Pilot throws you into the sleek, agile Fighting Falcon and says, “Good luck, pilot,” before pushing you straight into the chaos of modern air warfare. What ...

Black Monday (1987) combines economic panic with the thrill of—wait for it—spreadsheet navigation. It's like Wolf of Wall Street without the fun, drugs, or DiCaprio. Yo...

Superhero League of Hoboken is a wonderfully odd role-playing adventure that imagines a superhero team defending the world from threats while operating out of Hoboken. The humor is...

Slash'EM is a substantial 1997 variant of the legendary roguelike NetHack, expanding its already enormous collection of monsters, items, classes, spells, and gameplay possibilities...

Troika is a strategy game with a distinctly old-school approach, asking players to think carefully about resources, movement, and long-term decisions rather than simply charging ah...

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...

Operation Bodycount sounds subtle, doesn’t it? Released in 1994, this shooter wastes no time letting you know exactly what it’s about: running around and, well, increas...

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...

F/A-18 Korea is a serious combat flight simulator for players who enjoy the idea of flying a modern fighter while simultaneously managing a rather intimidating collection of button...

Ever dreamed of a medieval Wall Street where knights swap swords instead of stocks? Knight Exchange turns that fever dream into pixels. Released in 1988 for DOS, this quirky strate...

Strike Commander is a high-speed flight simulator that combines fighter combat with a surprisingly ambitious campaign structure. You fly missions, manage your aircraft and take par...

The Cool Croc Twins is a colorful platform game starring two crocodile brothers who seem to have decided that saving the day is best accomplished while bouncing around, collecting ...

Sango Fighter 2 expands the fighting formula of its predecessor with more characters, moves, and opportunities for chaotic martial-arts action. The game once again turns warriors f...

What if the Nazis won? Kronolog: The Nazi Paradox (1993, DOS) takes that nightmare seriously. You play a time traveler trying to fix history, navigating through an oppressive, Orwe...

The Neverending Story 2: The Arcade Game takes the fantasy world of Fantasia and turns it into a straightforward arcade adventure. Based on the second NeverEnding Story film, the g...

ELIZA, created in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, was one of the first computer programs to simulate human conversation. Designed as a natural language processing demons...

This isn’t Disney’s musical fairytale—it’s a DOS game, which means Beauty and the Beast is way more "puzzle platformer" than "tale as old as time." You play...

Crazy Nick’s Roger Wilco’s Spaced Out Games Pack hands the Space Quest janitor a stack of silly mini-games to keep him from accidentally saving the galaxy again. Expect...

Dungeons of Kroz 2 didn’t reinvent the wheel—it sharpened it and rolled it over your face. Released the same year as the original, it’s tougher, faster, and even ...

StarBlade is a 1990 DOS space shooter built around fast action, enemy waves, and the familiar challenge of keeping a small spacecraft alive against a very large number of things tr...

F-15 Strike Eagle is one of those games that practically defined what a combat flight simulator should be in the 1980s. It drops you into the cockpit of the legendary F-15 and tell...

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...

Murders in Venice sends players into the atmospheric world of Venetian mystery, where beautiful surroundings conceal a dangerous investigation. Players explore locations, question ...

Released in 1989 for DOS and Mac, The Transinium Challenge is a classic TNG-era adventure game with a wholesome dose of techno-babble. You guide Picard and the crew through an inve...

Released in 1990, Disc feels like a relic from a parallel universe where Frisbee is the most important sport in history. The game is minimalist to a fault: you throw discs, catch d...

Menace is a fast-paced side-scrolling shooter from the creators of DMA Design, throwing players into a hostile alien world where everything seems determined to explode. Armed with ...

With a title like Game Over, you almost expect the game to greet you with a shrug and a polite apology. Instead, it throws players into a strange sci-fi action adventure filled wit...

Unnecessary Roughness takes American football and gives it a slightly rougher, more arcade-like edge. Released in 1993, it doesn’t aim for pure simulation, instead focusing on fa...

A game with a name like Battle Isle 93: The Moon of Chromos clearly means business. Released in 1993, it’s an expansion-slash-standalone with new missions, harder AI, and an ...