abandonware games sorted by popularity

World Games is a collection of unusual sporting events designed to prove that the Olympics did not have a monopoly on strange ways of hurting yourself. Instead of concentrating on ...

Italicized title: J.R.R. Tolkien's Riders of Rohan. Rather than focusing on epic battles alone, this adaptation places players in the role of a member of Rohan during one of the mo...

In 1991, DOS gamers were treated to the weirdest parenting simulator ever: Baby Joe in: Going Home. You play as Baby Joe, an infant inexplicably left to crawl through caves, forest...

In Blitzkrieg: Battle at the Ardennes, you’re not just playing a wargame — you’re being handed a clipboard, a stack of orders, and a freezing cold battlefield in ...

Do you enjoy betrayal, backstabbing, and pretending to be a global power while actually being terrible at geography? Computer Diplomacy is the digital version of the classic board ...

Stone Age throws you into a prehistoric world where survival depends on exploration, quick thinking and the occasional willingness to hit something with a very primitive weapon. Ra...

Ninja is a 1986 action game that wastes very little time explaining the job description. You are a ninja, there are enemies, and they would prefer that you stop being quite so succ...

Released in 1992, Dylan Dog: Murderers brings Italy’s most famous nightmare investigator to the DOS screen with all the moody atmosphere you’d expect. It’s part p...

Released in 1992, Sexy Droids ventured into science fiction with a mixture of adult humor and futuristic imagery. The game embraced its unusual concept wholeheartedly, presenting s...

Ken's Labyrinth throws players into twisting mazes packed with monsters, hidden rooms, colorful textures, and enough secret passages to keep even the most determined explorer suspi...

Phantis is a 1987 platform action game that sends players through colorful environments filled with enemies, obstacles, and classic challenges requiring quick reflexes. The game fo...

Strategy fans, sharpen your wits: The Perfect General (1991, DOS) marches onto the battlefield with hex-based tactics, satisfyingly crunchy mechanics, and a strict “no button...

Escape from Delirium feels like someone took a pulp adventure novel, dipped it in a bucket of chaos, and fed it to a DOS system. You wake up with amnesia (because of course you do)...

Pitstop 2 is a 1984 racing game that focuses on endurance driving, strategy, and the surprisingly important task of maintaining a vehicle during competition. Players race around tr...

Jump 'n Bump proves that rabbits can be surprisingly competitive. Released in 1998, this multiplayer-focused platform game pits adorable bunnies against one another in frantic matc...

If you’ve ever wanted to feel intellectually inferior to a few hundred lines of 1981 code, Chess is your game. This digital board doesn’t bother with graphics flair or ...

Oubliette is a 1983 role-playing game and an important early example of the dungeon-crawling tradition that would influence generations of computer RPGs. Players create characters,...

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...

Football Fanatic (1998, DOS) is pure arcade chaos dressed in cleats. It doesn’t care much for the finer tactical nuances of the sport; it wants you sprinting, tackling, and g...

Imagine if Tetris, Columns, and a pack of highlighters had a baby. That’s Zoop. You’re in the center of the screen, and colorful shapes are marching toward you from all...

Zangband is a variant of the popular roguelike game Angband. Zangband, short for Zelazny Angband, was developed by Chris Weisiger and first released in 1994. The game features...

Released in 1988, Lane Mastodon vs. the Blubbermen is one of those wonderfully odd DOS adventures that seems determined to surprise players every few minutes. Starring the delightf...

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...

Starquake is a 1988 platform adventure that sends the player into a dangerous alien world filled with platforms, creatures, hazards, and environmental puzzles. The protagonist must...

DuckTales: The Quest for Gold takes everyone’s favorite miserly duck, Scrooge McDuck, and sends him globetrotting for treasure. It’s part platformer, part management si...

Epic Pinball is what happens when a small team says, “Sure, let’s make a pinball game,” and accidentally creates one of the most addictive shareware hits of the d...

Ah, Dungeons of Kroz, the glorious mess of ASCII characters that somehow became addictive. Created by Apogee in 1989, it’s a fast-paced dungeon adventure where every symbol m...

One-Nil Soccer Manager is a text-based soccer management simulation game that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed for various home computer systems, inc...

Into the Eagle's Nest from 1987 is a top-down action game where stealth and gunfire coexist in uneasy partnership. Players infiltrate enemy territory, rescue prisoners, and survive...

With a name like Dink Smallwood, you’d expect something ridiculous—and you’d be right. Released in 1998 for Windows XP, this action RPG follows a pig farmer with ...