abandonware games sorted by popularity

UMS, short for Universal Military Simulator, is a computer-based wargame simulation developed by Rainbird Software in 1988. It was designed with the intention of providing players ...

Gauntlet 2 is proof that sequels sometimes mean “more of the same, but louder.” The 1989 upgrade takes the chaotic dungeons of the original and adds new enemies, nastie...

Don’t be fooled by the name—Amazing Maze is more of a slightly-better-than-average maze. But hey, in 1983, navigating a screen full of walls and hoping you guessed righ...

Based loosely on Jules Verne’s famous tale, this game lets you live your steampunk submarine dreams with all the elegance of a DOS interface. You command the Nautilus, explor...

Forget Sonic. Forget Mario. Zool is a ninja from the Nth Dimension, which is apparently a place where hyperactive insects fight sentient sweets. Speed is the name of the game, and ...

Seal Team (1993) drops you into the muddy waters of the Vietnam War as part of an elite Navy SEAL squad. It’s surprisingly realistic for its time—meticulously tactical,...

Pit Fighter is an arcade-style fighting game that was originally released in arcades in 1990 by Atari Games. It was later ported to various home gaming platforms, including DOS, th...

Cartooners lets you live out your childhood dream of being a one-person animation studio… minus the caffeine addiction. It’s a charming sandbox where you can draw your...

In Armor Alley, you command a helicopter in a warzone that looks like a side-scrolling office meeting gone wrong. It’s strategy meets action: you must manage resources, deplo...

If gravity had a sense of humor, it would look like Bounce Zone. This 1990 DOS oddball is part platformer, part physics experiment, and part unintentional comedy. You bounce. A lot...

If you’ve ever looked at a map of the Pacific theater in World War II and thought, “Yes, but what if I micromanaged all of it?”, Gary Grigsby’s Pacific War ...

The original Crusader: No Remorse sets the tone for the series: brutal, explosive, and unapologetically action-focused. You’re a rogue operative taking on a dystopian corpora...

Scavengers of the Mutant World (1988) takes you to a post-apocalyptic wasteland where radiation has turned most life forms into something between a potato and a death machine. Your...

The Cardinal of the Kremlin is an abandoned simulation game involving espionage, politics and govern management set in the cold war years. It was designed by Kenneth Rothschil...

Think you're smart? Arcade Trivia Quiz (1993) is here to humble you with rapid-fire questions about pop culture, history, and whatever else the developers could fit on a floppy dis...

Super Mario Fusion: Revival is a freeware fan-made game project that aims to combine elements from various classic video games, primarily the Super Mario series and the Sonic ...

Antarctic Adventure (1986) stars a penguin who seems to be training for the Winter Olympics — at full sprint. This early Konami game has you racing across icy terrain, dodgin...

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a grave-robbing dwarf with a flair for interior dungeon decoration? Cadaver grants that peculiar wish. As Karadoc, you’ll wander an eer...