abandonware games sorted by popularity

System Shock drops you into a space station run by an AI that has clearly read too many villain manuals and decided to try them all at once. SHODAN, the game’s iconic antagon...

Morphman is a quirky puzzle game built around transforming shapes and manipulating objects to overcome increasingly inventive challenges. The central mechanics encourage experiment...

Titans of Steel: Warring Suns is a tactical role-playing game where enormous machines settle arguments in the least environmentally friendly way possible. Players command teams of ...

War of the Lance turns the Dragonlance setting into a substantial fantasy strategy game, allowing players to participate in the enormous conflict between the forces of good and evi...

Welcome to 2112, a game that predicted a grim techno-future back when floppy disks still ruled. This DOS-era oddity throws you into a world that’s part cyberpunk, part fever ...

The Cool Croc Twins is a colorful platform game starring two crocodile brothers who seem to have decided that saving the day is best accomplished while bouncing around, collecting ...

Highway Fighter delivers straightforward action with a focus on reflexes and timing. It throws obstacles your way with enthusiasm, expecting you to adapt quickly or face the conseq...

Formula One (1994) approaches racing with a slightly more accessible grin than its stern predecessors. It still wants you to care about apexes and braking zones, but it’s hap...

Despite the name, Aquaphobia (1992) doesn’t help you overcome your fear of water. In fact, it might just make it worse. This is an action-platformer where you try not to drow...

Borland Reflex was a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Borland International, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Reflex was rele...

Jane's Combat Simulations: Advanced Tactical Fighters arrived in 1996 and delivered the kind of detailed flight simulation that aviation enthusiasts love. Players take control of m...

Sid & Al's Incredible Toons is a wonderfully strange 1993 puzzle game where the laws of physics seem to have taken an extended vacation. Players create elaborate contraptions using...

If Barbie was mildly passive in her 1992 debut, Barbie Super Model (1993) puts her on the runway—literally. You’ll practice walking, dodging obstacles, and matching out...

Hocus Pocus is the kind of platformer that seems to run on pure sugar and cheerful chaos. You play as a young wizard with more enthusiasm than common sense, bouncing through colorf...

In Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour, tennis is stripped down to its essentials: a racket, a ball, and the growing suspicion that your opponent has somehow mastered the laws of physics...

Creatures is an unusual life-simulation game built around the idea that virtual creatures should actually behave like living things. You hatch small Norns, teach them, feed them, p...

Sports games in 1990 weren’t exactly realistic, but Double Dribble made a surprisingly good attempt. This Konami basketball title brought fast-paced, side-scrolling action to...

Inspector Gadget: Global Terror! takes everyone’s favorite bionic klutz and hands him a globe-trotting mission to stop M.A.D.—which is roughly as risky as giving a todd...

Conqueror is what happens when a tank simulator and an arcade game go on a date and forget their purpose. You drive a tank in a pseudo-3D landscape, blow up stuff, and command squa...

Boston Bomb Club (1991, DOS) is a Rube Goldberg fever dream disguised as a puzzle game. Your mission: guide bombs (yes, bombs) along increasingly elaborate tracks using contraption...

Ween: The Prophecy is a surreal French adventure that mixes fantasy, strange characters, puzzles, and an atmosphere that occasionally feels as though someone has poured a dream int...

Duck Hunt is a faithful remake based on the original light gun game Duck Hunt published by Nintendo in 1984. Duck Hunt was a shooting gallery game with a straightforward ...

Ulises is a mythological adventure that wears its classical inspiration proudly, even when the technology struggles to keep up. Drawing loosely from Homer’s Odyssey, the game...

If you’ve ever wondered what baseball would look like if someone crammed the entire sport into a DOS machine and sprinkled a bit of 90s attitude on top, Epic Baseball has you...

Superbike Challenge is a motorcycle racing game that puts speed, control, and sharp corners ahead of elaborate simulation. Players take to the track on powerful bikes and compete i...

Based on Anne McCaffrey’s novels, Dragonriders of Pern (1987) is an odd duck. It tries to blend diplomacy, strategy, and a dash of action into one package. You don’t ju...

The Battle of the Bulge: Tigers in the Snow is a detailed World War II strategy game focused on the German offensive in the Ardennes during the winter of 1944. Released in 1982, it...

Humans 3: Evolution - Lost in Time takes the familiar formula of guiding small, vulnerable characters and adds a time-travel twist. Released in 1995, it challenges you to manage gr...

Alien Crucible is an ambitious science-fiction role-playing project built around exploration, combat and the discovery of a dangerous alien world. Developed during a period when co...

Slicks 'n' Slide is a 1993 DOS racing game that keeps things deliberately simple: choose a vehicle, get onto the track, and try to finish ahead of everyone else. The game's top-dow...