abandonware games sorted by popularity

Galdregon's Domain drops players into a fantasy world that feels like it was stitched together from dungeon maps, spellbooks, and a suspiciously large number of monsters. The premi...

Dark Side (1988) is a first-person sci-fi adventure set on a moon orbiting a planet that’s about to be destroyed. No pressure. The gameplay combines exploration with puzzle-s...

An expansion to the original, Cossacks: The Art of War refines, expands, and generally cranks up the chaos. New units, new campaigns, and more ways to accidentally bankrupt your na...

Unreal by Ordilogic, released in 1991, is not the one most people think of, and that alone makes it interesting. It’s an action-adventure experience that blends exploration with ...

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...

Moraff's Dungeon of the Unforgiven is a first-person dungeon crawler filled with monsters, exploration, treasure, and the sort of dark corridors that strongly suggest turning aroun...

Hard Hat Mack is the kind of game that proves construction work can be more dangerous in pixels than in real life, provided real life had ladders that seem determined to betray you...

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is an action-adventure game released in 1999, developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos Interactive. It’s the second game in the Legacy...

Troika is a strategy game with a distinctly old-school approach, asking players to think carefully about resources, movement, and long-term decisions rather than simply charging ah...

Film Studio Tycoon Alpha is a management simulation about the glamorous world of filmmaking, except that glamour quickly gives way to budgets, scheduling, production decisions, and...

Black Monday (1987) combines economic panic with the thrill of—wait for it—spreadsheet navigation. It's like Wolf of Wall Street without the fun, drugs, or DiCaprio. Yo...

Fish or be fished could be the motto of Bass Duel (1993), a competitive angling game that pits you against a friend or an AI in a fight to the last splash. Strategy is key: where t...

Beach volleyball rarely received much attention in classic gaming, making Kings of the Beach a refreshing surprise. Fast-paced matches combine accessible controls with enough tacti...

Space Harrier is a 1989 DOS version of Sega's famous arcade shooter, placing the player in a surreal fantasy landscape filled with giant creatures, strange enemies, obstacles, and ...

Sword of Aragon is a fantasy strategy RPG that combines exploration, character development, tactical combat, and kingdom management into one fairly ambitious package. Released in 1...

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,...

Released in 2001 for PC, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is what happens when someone looks at Age of Empires II and says, “This is good, but what if there were AT-ATs stom...

P47 Thunderbolt is a 1990 side-scrolling shooter that puts players in the cockpit of the legendary Republic P-47 fighter aircraft during the Second World War. The mission is wonder...

Alien Nations is a real-time strategy game with a lighter, more colourful personality than the usual grim business of commanding armies. Players establish settlements, gather resou...

In Reunion, you return to a solar system that’s moved on without you—like showing up to your own birthday party two centuries late. Your mission? Rebuild civilization, ...

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...

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...

Seal Team (1993) drops you into the muddy waters of the Vietnam War as part of an elite Navy SEAL squad. It’s surprisingly realistic for its time—meticulously tactical,...

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...

1994Pool is a straightforward pool simulation that brings the familiar green baize and clatter of billiard balls to the computer screen. The game focuses on the essentials: lining ...

African Adventure is one of those games that feels like it was made during a two-hour layover at the airport - but somehow, it works. Set in the savannah, it combines survival, exp...

Starcross is a 1982 science-fiction text adventure from Infocom that places the player aboard a mysterious spacecraft with an intriguing and potentially dangerous problem to solve....

Doszip Commander is a file manager for DOS inspired by the classic two-panel approach that became so popular among power users. It allows files and directories to be browsed, copie...

Wolfsbane is a dark fantasy action game that sends the player into a hostile world filled with monsters, dangerous environments, and the usual medieval assortment of things that re...

Welltris takes the familiar falling-block formula and turns it sideways, quite literally. Released in 1989, this Tetris-inspired puzzle game presents a three-dimensional well into ...