abandonware games sorted by popularity

Rules of Engagement 2 builds on its predecessor's space-command formula with a larger and more sophisticated strategic experience. Players manage fleets, plan operations, assign sh...

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...

Monuments of Mars (1991) is one of those puzzle-platformers where patience is less a virtue and more a survival tool. You’re stranded on Mars, exploring alien ruins filled wi...

X-Fighter feels like one of those early experiments where developers were still figuring out what “space combat” should even look like. It is simple, direct, and unapologetical...

By 1994, point-and-click adventures were everywhere, but Dragonsphere carved out its niche with lush graphics, an intriguing plot, and plenty of puzzles. You play a young king task...

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...

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...

Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos continues the adventures of Ryu Hayabusa with even more enemies, more danger, and a title that makes it very clear that the sword situation ...

Where Time Stood Still is an adventure set in a strange, dangerous land where getting lost is considerably easier than finding the exit. You guide a small group of characters throu...

In Allan Border’s Cricket (1993), you get to live the thrill of... waiting. A lot. But when the action kicks in, it’s surprisingly engaging. Named after the Australian ...

The Beverly Hillbillies turns the television comedy into a lighthearted computer adventure built around the Clampett family and their wonderfully strange arrival in Beverly Hills. ...

The Battle of the Bulge: Tigers in the Snow is a detailed World War II strategy game focused on the German offensive in the Ardennes during the winter of 1944. Released in 1982, it...

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...

Forget modern physics—Caverns of Kroz lets you destroy walls with whips. Yes, whips. This 1989 ASCII masterpiece from Apogee is part puzzle, part action, and all danger. You ...

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’ve ever wondered what baseball would look like if someone crammed the entire sport into a DOS machine and sprinkled a bit of 90s attitude on top, Epic Baseball has you...

Roadwar 2000 is a 1987 DOS strategy game set in a post-apocalyptic America where civilization has collapsed and the roads are controlled by heavily armed gangs. Players command a c...

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...

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...

Rollo and the Brush Brothers is a 1983 DOS game with an unusual premise and the kind of experimental spirit that characterized early home-computer software. Players guide Rollo thr...

In Blackstar: Agent of Justice (1995), you play a noir-style detective in a trench coat so dramatic it probably has its own union. Set in a dark, crime-ridden city where everyone t...

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....

In a world where fish can apparently become cybernetic superheroes, James Pond 2: Codename: RoboCod makes perfect sense. Released for DOS in 1993, this platformer stars the aquatic...

Captain Dynamo is what happens when a circus acrobat chugs ten cans of cola and decides to take on gravity itself. You’re bouncing, flipping, and springing through traps and ...

Released in 1985, Space Commanders 2 didn’t reinvent the wheel — it just made it spin faster. The sequel adds smoother animation, a few new enemy patterns, and a slight...

Arx Fatalis is basically what happens when someone takes “dungeons and dragons” way too literally. You start trapped in a gloomy underground world because—oops&md...

Sokoban is one of those puzzle games whose rules can be explained in a sentence and whose harder levels can destroy an afternoon. The player controls a character inside a warehouse...

Solomon's Key is a 1988 puzzle-platform game in which the player controls a wizard attempting to navigate rooms filled with enemies, traps, ladders, and blocks that can be created ...

If Hamlet had a sequel directed by a DOS programmer, Castle Elsinore would be it. This interactive fiction game drops you right into Shakespearean drama with murder, betrayal, and ...

Mech Commander: Gold (1999) is tactical perfection for fans of giant robots and careful planning. Set in the BattleTech universe, the game puts you in command of a mercenary squad ...