abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before Diablo made clicking on dungeons cool, DarkSpyre was already throwing players into labyrinths filled with monsters and puzzles. Released in 1990, it combines hack-and-slash ...

Welcome to a future where zooming through tunnels and dodging neon obstacles is considered heroic. Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom is a proto-3D arcade shooter that tries its best to i...

Welcome aboard, Captain! Advanced Destroyer Simulator throws you into the high seas with all the firepower and radar beeps a '90s DOS machine can handle. Manage torpedoes, dodge de...

Empire Soccer 94 is football stripped of glamour and presented with a straight face that makes everything unintentionally funny. There are no licenses, no famous players, and no at...

Ah, Betrayal—a game with a name that really sets the tone. Is it about backstabbing? Politics? Lost love? Not really. It’s actually a hybrid of strategy and role-playin...

Bomb Run (1991, DOS) sounds like an action-packed thriller—and then you play it and realize you’re just trying to drop bombs in the right spots while flying what feels ...

Blade Warrior (1991) is a side-scrolling beat 'em up that looks like it was illustrated entirely in heavy metal album covers. You’re a silhouette of rage, cutting through dem...

Released in 1989, this game has you exploring a tomb filled with ancient evils. Navigate through dark corridors, solve puzzles, and confront the awakening demons. It's like playing...

Dragon Slayer: the Legend of Heroes is a classic Japanese-style role-playing adventure that combines exploration, character development, combat, and a traditional fantasy story. Yo...

It’s 1990, and you’re sitting at your DOS PC playing Accordion, a game that somehow turns solitaire into something slower and more passive-aggressive. It’s not fl...

Stationfall is the follow-up to Infocom’s classic sci-fi adventure, dropping you aboard a deserted space station that is about as welcoming as a hotel with no staff, no electrici...

Dick Tracy (1990) tries to turn the classic comic-strip detective into a video game, and the result is equal parts charming and clunky. You’ll chase gangsters, dodge bullets,...

Soccer Kid is a colorful 1995 platform game in which football becomes an unlikely weapon against a rather unusual collection of villains. The player controls a young soccer enthusi...

Space exploration reaches impressive heights in Master of Orion, a strategy classic that challenges players to guide an interstellar civilization toward galactic supremacy. Coloniz...

Marathon 2: Durandal builds confidently upon the original by refining the action, expanding the story, and introducing multiplayer features that became legendary among fans. The ca...

_Jetset_, released in 1982, belongs to the pioneering era of computer gaming when developers worked wonders with limited technology. The game combines arcade-style action with fast...

Desperados is a tactical western adventure that takes the familiar cowboy setting and replaces the usual run-and-gun chaos with careful planning. You control a small group of chara...

Civil War buffs, rejoice. Battle of Antietam (1985) lets you relive one of the bloodiest days in American history... via pixelated dots and turn-based tension. There’s no fla...

Star Control 3 continues the series' blend of space exploration, alien diplomacy, strategy, and combat, taking players back into a galaxy populated by numerous civilizations with t...

Moraff's World offers a colorful fantasy role-playing adventure where players explore a large world, battle monsters, gather treasure, and gradually develop a powerful character. T...

ShadowForce (1994, DOS) is what happens when someone decides subtlety is overrated and replaces it with explosions. This tactical action romp drops you into a near-future mess of m...

Murder in the Atlantic takes the classic locked-room mystery and places it aboard a luxury ocean liner, where a murder turns an elegant voyage into an investigation filled with sus...

Secret Agent is a 1992 DOS action-platform game from Apogee in which players take control of an international spy battling through dangerous levels packed with enemies, traps, and ...

Released in 1988 for DOS, this game lets you drive monster trucks across deserts, swamps, and icy wastelands with all the grace of a drunken forklift. It’s less about speed a...

Mirror Magic is a clever puzzle adventure built around mirrors, reflections, and the delightful realization that optical illusions can be considerably more complicated than they lo...

Super Space Invaders takes the old “shoot the aliens before they land” formula and pours a shot of espresso into it. The result? Faster, flashier, and mildly panic-indu...

Dark, moody, and surprisingly creepy, Zork Nemesis is what happens when the whimsical world of Zork goes goth. The text adventures are gone—now it’s full-motion video, ...

Daffy Duck PI: The Case of the Missing Letters is a Looney Tunes spin on the classic edutainment formula. As Daffy, you’re on the trail of a nefarious plot to steal the alpha...

Vlad Tepes Dracula turns one of history’s most notorious figures into the star of a dark adventure built around vampires, mystery, and Gothic atmosphere. Released in 1997, the ga...

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 ...