abandonware games sorted by popularity

In Lost Adventures of Kroz, ASCII characters do all the heavy lifting. No sprites, no polygons — just your imagination and a fearless “@” symbol running for its l...

Remember the spandex-clad madness of 90s TV? American Gladiators brings it to your DOS screen with all the grace of a flying pugil stick. You’ll compete in various bizarre ev...

Heroes of the 357th puts you in the cockpit with a seriousness that borders on intimidating, but in a good way. It leans heavily into simulation, asking you to think like a pilot r...

Power Drift feels like a rollercoaster decided it wanted to be a racing game. The tracks are tilted, twisted, and occasionally seem designed by an architect who had a personal grud...

Dizzy the egg is back, and this time he’s underwater and floating up on bubbles because... sure, why not? Bubble Dizzy is a mix of patience, timing, and yelling “WHY DI...

Super Hang-On is an abandoned motorcycle arcade racing game, developed by Sega, designed by Yu Suzuki and published by Data East for DOS in 1988 (the arcade was released in 1987). ...

Jumping forward to 2004, Dark Horizons Lore: Invasion ditches swords and sorcery for giant mechs stomping across futuristic battlefields. It’s a squad-based online multiplaye...

It’s Colonel Mustard in the Study with the Lead Pipe—but on DOS. Clue Master Detective takes the classic board game and wraps it in moody music, pixelated crime scenes,...

A gentle adventure inspired by the animated film, Once Upon a Forest (1995, DOS) delivers an eco-friendly story wrapped in side-scrolling gameplay. You guide three tiny forest crea...

Bright, quirky, and just a little bit mischievous, Finders Keepers feels like it wandered in from another dimension where puzzles and platforming share equal custody of your patien...

Shadowlands (1992, DOS) hands you a party of adventurers and then expects you to coordinate them like a fantasy air-traffic controller. Instead of a single hero, you manage four ch...

Tex Murphy: The Pandora Directive is a delightful blend of detective noir, sci-fi weirdness, and FMV acting that swings between charming and unintentionally hilarious. You step int...

Ever wanted to design a roller coaster so terrifying it’d make your pixelated patrons vomit in joy? Coaster is your twisted playground. Build loops, dives, and stomach-churni...

X-Men 2: The Fall of the Mutants is a curious blend of action and light strategy, where Marvel’s famous mutants get to stretch their powers across a series of loosely connected m...

Conflict is a turn-based war game where you get to play Commander-in-Chief and yell at your virtual generals when things go wrong (which they often do). It's part military sim, par...

Flying Tigers (1994, DOS) throws you into the Pacific theater with a grin and a trigger finger that never quite rests. It’s loud, brash, and unashamedly action-oriented, the ...

Grand Prix is one of those games that tries to bottle the thrill of Formula racing and pour it into a DOS machine that wheezes like an overworked engine. In Grand Prix, you get a s...

If Clouds of Xeen was the sunny side of the adventure, Might and Magic 5: Darkside of Xeen gleefully flips the map over and shows you the other half. The tone is a bit darker, the ...

The Shadows of Mordor is a dark fantasy adventure that feels like a lost chapter from an old-school Tolkien-inspired novel. You explore a grim and dangerous world filled with monst...

Released in 1994, Alien Olympics answers the age-old question: “What if the Olympics were hosted by Martians on acid?” This wacky collection of mini-games has you compe...