abandonware games sorted by popularity

If your idea of high-octane excitement involves wind direction, tacking angles, and sail trim, then American Challenge: A Sailing Simulation is your digital paradise. This 1986 DOS...

Doofus (1994) is what happens when platformers go slightly off the rails. You guide a floppy-haired kid through surreal, cartoony landscapes filled with hazards that feel more anno...

Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan is a computer RPG released in 1990 for MS-DOS and PC-98 platforms. It is based on the tabletop role-playing game Tunnels & Trolls crea...

Silverball is an abandoned DOS pinball action game developed by Digital Extremes, designed by James Schmalz and published by MicroLeague Multimedia in 1993. Silverball is one of th...

Before Football Manager consumed the souls of soccer nerds everywhere, there was Club Football: The Manager. It’s all spreadsheets, transfers, and managing egos with egos. Th...

Great Naval Battles vol. 2: Guadalcanal 1942-43 puts you in charge of naval warfare where every decision feels heavy and every mistake echoes across the ocean. In Great Naval Battl...

Subtlety is not in Fire and Forget’s vocabulary. You drive. You shoot. Things explode. That’s the pitch, and the game sticks to it with admirable stubbornness. Released...

Guardians of Infinity: to Save Kennedy is the sort of time-travel adventure that casually suggests you might want to prevent one of the most infamous assassinations in history befo...

Before realistic fighting games, there was Boxer Rebellion—a 1982 title so primitive, it makes Pong look flashy. It’s boxing with fewer rules and more pixels per punch....

Ready to guess wildly about the cost of household objects from the comfort of a DOS screen? The Price is Right (1990, DOS) brings the TV game show to your keyboard with a mixture o...

Noctis is less of a "game" and more of a meditative ritual performed through DOS interface, with fonts so pixelated they might just be ancient runes. You play as a silent explorer ...

Released in 1990, Dragon Strike dared to combine the wonder of Dungeons & Dragons with the thrill of first-person flight simulation. Yes, instead of piloting jets, you piloted ...

Released in 1991, Fantasy World Dizzy is a whimsical adventure that proves even an egg can carry the weight of an entire fantasy quest. The game blends puzzle-solving with explorat...

Mission: Impossible brings the famous spy franchise to the computer in an action-oriented adventure filled with dangerous missions, enemy agents, and situations where subtlety is g...

Power Dolls is a 1994 tactical strategy game that places players in command of an elite female military unit equipped with powerful combat machines. The game combines turn-based pl...

Monopoly brings the classic board game of property, rent, and increasingly strained family relationships to the computer. Players buy streets, build houses, negotiate trades, and a...

Released in 1990, Day of the Viper is a first-person shooter before shooters really found their footing. Imagine a blend of Doom and a bargain-bin puzzle game, but with robots. You...

England Championship Special (1991, DOS) is the kind of football game that doesn’t pretend to know what the Premier League will look like in 30 years—it just wants you ...

Astro Dodge (1982) is basically Frogger — in space. You control a tiny spacecraft tasked with dodging endless waves of meteors, space debris, and possibly your own questionab...

Released in 2003 for Windows XP, Babylon 5: I've Found Her is the kind of fan-made game that makes you question whether it’s actually fan-made or secretly a pilot for a new s...

Quest for Glory 1: So You Want to Be a Hero is a 1989 adventure RPG that asks a deceptively simple question: what happens when an inexperienced adventurer decides to become a hero?...