abandonware games sorted by popularity

Aliants: The Desperate Battle For Earth! is a science-fiction strategy game built around the suitably alarming idea that humanity has run out of time and extraterrestrial enemies a...

The Global Dilemma: Guns or Butter is a strategy game built around one of humanity's oldest political questions: should you spend your resources on military power or on keeping eve...

Trivial Pursuit brings the familiar board-game quiz format to the computer, replacing cardboard, tiny coloured wedges, and argumentative relatives with a keyboard and a screen. The...

Lancelot (1988) is an action-adventure that draws loosely from Arthurian legend and very tightly from the difficulty school of “good luck.” You guide the famous knight ...

The Adventures of Robin Hood takes the legendary outlaw and turns his story into a mix of strategy, action, and historical flavor. You’re not just shooting arrows; you’re manag...

Silverball is a 1993 DOS pinball game that brings several virtual tables to the computer screen, offering players the familiar combination of flippers, bumpers, ramps, targets, and...

Beneath Apple Manor is a pioneering game in the roguelike genre, originally developed and released in 1978 by Don Worth for the Apple II and later re-released for DOS as a "Special...

Operation: Inner Space is a 1994 Windows 3.x game that takes players on a strange journey through the microscopic world inside the human body. Rather than exploring distant planets...

Ogre is a 1986 strategy game based on the classic science-fiction board game concept of a gigantic automated tank facing conventional military forces. The premise is wonderfully si...

Visions of the Aftermath: The Boomtown presents a bleak vision of survival in a world that has already suffered the unpleasant consequences of civilization going spectacularly wron...

V for Victory: Gold-Juno-Sword continues the series' detailed treatment of the Normandy campaign, this time concentrating on the British and Canadian sectors of the Allied invasion...

Goal! is one of those football games that reminds you how far sports simulations have come—and how much fun they were before realism took over. The controls are simple, the p...

Netherworld is a 1990 action game that sends the player into a strange, hostile world filled with enemies, obstacles, and the sort of atmosphere that suggests the local tourism boa...

Released in 1993 for DOS, Fields of Glory is a turn-based strategy game that focuses on historical warfare with a refreshingly thoughtful pace. Instead of rushing you into constant...

Boulder Dash Construction Kit is both a full game and a level editor, built around the gameplay mechanics of the original Boulder Dash (1984). You still play as Rockford, the pixel...

Is it Breakout? Is it Arkanoid? No — it’s Bananoid, the fruitiest bat-and-ball clone you never asked for. With bananas, monkeys, and psychedelic colors, it feels like s...

Moraff's Revenge delivers a classic dungeon-crawling role-playing adventure packed with monsters, treasure, exploration, and enough dangerous corridors to make staying home seem in...

In 1986, Dragonfly emerged as one of those simple but strangely addictive action games. Picture a cross between a shooter and an abstract insect simulator. The graphics are blocky,...

If Shakespeare wrote video games and then decided, “You know what this needs? A parser and some pixelated drama,” you'd get Avon. In this interactive fiction gem from 1...

Ford Simulator 2 (1990, DOS) refines the showroom-on-a-floppy concept with smoother presentation and a bit more driving confidence. The cars handle with reassuring steadiness, and ...

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...

By the time Exile III: Ruined World arrived in 1997, the series knew exactly what it wanted to be—and it delivered with confidence. This installment expands the scope dramati...

With Battle Isle 2200 (1994), the series goes full 3D cinematic—with cutscenes so dramatic you’d think they were auditioning for a soap opera in space. The gameplay is ...

Dominium (1992) is an ambitious mix of real-time strategy and empire management, though perhaps “ambitious” is just another word for “slightly overwhelming.&rdquo...

World Tour Golf is an early golf simulation built around the eternal challenge of sending a small white ball toward a hole while avoiding the temptation to blame the weather, the c...

Kingdom of Kroz is a delightful blend of action, puzzle solving, and exploration that quickly became one of the defining entries in the famous Kroz series. Armed with limited resou...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens&mdash...

Blitz Runner is a fast-moving action game built around speed, reflexes and the increasingly difficult task of staying alive while everything around you seems determined to get in t...

Tomahawk is an early helicopter flight simulation that puts the player behind the controls of a military aircraft and expects them to take the job rather seriously. Navigation, wea...

She’s pink, she’s fast, and she’s got a bow. CHAMP Ms. Pac-man reimagines the iconic maze-chaser with smooth controls and new levels while keeping that glorious m...