abandonware games sorted by popularity

Armada 2525 is what happens when a spreadsheet decides it wants to conquer the galaxy. This is classic 4X strategy with all the bells, whistles, and menus your early '90s heart cou...

Based on the Disney movie that taught us cats can sing, dance, and apparently navigate 1980s New York, Oliver & Company for DOS (1989) is a surprisingly earnest platformer. You...

Part RTS, part simulation, Carrier Command was ahead of its time in the same way that an aircraft carrier is ahead of a canoe. You control a futuristic warship, launch aircraft and...

Oil Barons takes the glamorous world of oil speculation—yes, glamorous—and turns it into a strategy game that feels like Monopoly went through a midlife crisis. Release...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Fast Break is basketball distilled into pure late-80s computer logic. Don’t expect flashy presentation or TV-style commentary; instead, you get a to...

Azalta: Cult of the Raven is what happens when a lone developer says, “I can make an RPG better than Ultima!” and sort of does. Released in 1996, this DOS dungeon crawl...

Skifree is an adorable downhill romp… at least until the monster shows up. You start by zipping peacefully through flags and jumps, enjoying the zen simplicity of early Wind...

Finally, a game for people who think solitaire is just too wild. Bridge 7.0 is the digital equivalent of sipping tea with your grandparents while arguing about trumps and bidding s...

Tennis Elbow is where tennis simulation starts to get serious, almost suspiciously so. The physics are detailed, the controls precise, and the learning curve steep enough to scare ...

Face Off! (1989) wastes no time telling you exactly what it wants to be: fast, noisy, and slightly unhinged. This DOS arcade sports game throws subtlety out of the window and repla...

Eternam is a gloriously strange hybrid of 3D exploration, adventure puzzles, and comedic sci-fi. You play Don Jonzon, a man just trying to enjoy a vacation—only to end up cha...

Pac-in-Time is an abandoned action side-scrolling platformer game developed by Kalisto Entertainment and released by Mindscape in 1993 for DOS. Pac-in-time was but also published f...

Dive into Aquanox (2001), where post-apocalyptic submarines battle it out beneath the ocean in a world that’s half Waterworld, half neon rave. With moody lighting and dialogu...

War in Middle-earth is a real-time strategy game developed by Synergistic Software and published by Melbourne House. It was released in 1988 for various platforms including the Com...

Microsoft Minesweeper is an iconic puzzle game that has been included with Microsoft Windows operating systems since Windows 3.1. The game's objective is to clear a rectangular boa...

Ah, Black Sect (1993), where the puzzles are cryptic, the villagers are creepy, and the atmosphere is so thick you could spread it on toast. A classic first-person point-and-click ...

ATAC (1992) is what you get when someone says, “What if we made SimCity, but for waging the War on Drugs?” You play as the head of an anti-narcotics task force, deployi...