abandonware games sorted by popularity

Set in the far-off future of 1992, Battle Chess 4000 brings space-age flair to intergalactic checkmate. Now your queen is a laser-wielding dominatrix and your pawns might be robots...

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...

Lexi-Cross is an abandoned science fiction tv show-styled puzzle game. Lexi-Cross was developed by Platinumware and released for DOS by Interplay Productions in 1991. The gameplay ...

A Dudley Dilemma (1988) sounds like the title of a children’s book, but it’s actually a very British text adventure for DOS where the stakes are politely quirky and mil...

Arnhem is the kind of wargame where you spend more time reading hex maps than shooting anything. It’s all about recreating Operation Market Garden — you know, that WWII...

Boppin (1994, DOS) is a puzzle game that starts out cute and then sucker-punches you with its sinister undertone—literally. You throw blocks to match symbols, release trapped...

A text adventure with just enough graphics to remind you what year it is, The Pawn (1986, DOS) wraps you in a fantasy world where the puzzles are clever and the parser occasionally...

By the time Duke Nukem II rolled around, Duke had found his groove—and his ego. The gameplay is tighter, the explosions bigger, and the quips slightly more self-aware. It&rsq...

Terminal Terror throws you into a first-person maze filled with enemies and confusion, delivering a raw and somewhat chaotic shooter experience. The corridors feel endless, and the...

An expansion to the original, Cossacks: The Art of War refines, expands, and generally cranks up the chaos. New units, new campaigns, and more ways to accidentally bankrupt your na...

Horror Zombies from the Crypt sounds like it should be terrifying, but in practice it leans more toward quirky than genuinely scary. Released in 1990, it mixes action and adventure...

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...

Infiltrator drops you into the boots of a helicopter pilot who also happens to be a stealth operative—because the ’80s had no patience for specialization. Between air m...

Finally, a game where you don’t blast aliens—you launch real people into space, with all the white-knuckled tension of 1960s NASA. Buzz Aldrin’s Race into Space i...

If Conan had a bad day and took it out on a few dozen goblins, you'd get something close to Axe of Rage. This 1989 DOS hack-n-slash isn't exactly subtle—you're a barbarian, t...

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...

Prehistorik 2 builds on the first game’s formula but smooths out the rough edges. The controls are tighter, the levels more inventive, and the humor dialed up a notch. Once a...

Despite its title, Endless Horror doesn’t go for cheap jump scares—it prefers the slow, creeping kind of dread that seeps in while you stare at murky DOS graphics and w...

In Chicago 90, you either play as the cops or the crooks in a top-down, crime-infested, vaguely Windy City-esque setting. Think of it as a proto-GTA with more sirens and fewer mora...

Praetorians is a real-time strategy (RTS) game originally released in 2003 by Pyro Studios. Set in the Roman Empire during its peak, the game offers a blend of strategy and tactics...