abandonware games sorted by popularity

Electroman is a cheerful little platformer with a big grin and zero interest in realism. You play as a cartoonish superhero zipping through levels full of gadgets, traps, and enemi...

In Street Sports Basketball (1987, DOS), forget polished courts and referees—this is basketball played between garages, with trash cans as sidelines and pride on the line. Th...

History lessons become unexpectedly adventurous in Mario's Time Machine, where Bowser has stolen priceless historical artifacts and scattered them across different eras. Players tr...

In Gnome Alone, you step into the tiny boots of a gnome who really should have picked a quieter profession than “wandering into danger for no clear reason.” The game mi...

Rings of Medusa is a 1990 DOS role-playing adventure that combines exploration, trading, combat, and strategy in a large fantasy world. Players travel across a map, gather resource...

Ikari III: The Rescue takes the military action of its predecessors and adds one crucial ingredient: punching. Released in 1990 for DOS, it shifts from run-and-gun chaos toward bea...

Part interactive thriller, part newsroom simulator, The President is Missing (1988, DOS) casts you as an investigative journalist trying to unravel a political conspiracy before ev...

In the neon-lit corridors of cyberspace, you're a "decker," infiltrating corporate mainframes like a digital ninja. Released in 2002, this roguelike RPG offers a tile-based cyberpu...

Released in 1990, Logo introduces players to programming concepts through the famous turtle graphics system, transforming coding into an approachable creative activity. Rather than...

Evasive Action is a space shooter that embraces speed and precision over spectacle. You pilot a small craft through dangerous environments, dodging obstacles and enemies with littl...

Released in 1989, Legacy of the Ancients combines traditional role-playing mechanics with exploration, quests, and a surprisingly imaginative fantasy setting. Players recruit compa...

Released in 1986, James Bond 007: Goldfinger adapted one of the most beloved Bond stories into a text-heavy adventure experience. Rather than relying on fast reflexes, players must...

The sequel to Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch, Return to Ringworld throws you back into Larry Niven’s vast sci-fi universe—except this time, the puzzles are tougher...

Eternam is a gloriously strange hybrid of 3D exploration, adventure puzzles, and comedic sci-fi. You play Don Jonzon, a man just trying to enjoy a vacation—only to end up cha...

Prophecy of the Shadow is a 1992 role-playing game that takes players on a traditional fantasy adventure filled with exploration, combat, and magical mysteries. Players create a ch...

Fast Food Dizzy, released in 1989 for DOS, is exactly as chaotic as the title suggests. Starring the famously round egg hero, the game drops Dizzy into a world where food falls fro...

Fairy Tale Adventure 2: Halls of the Dead (1997) continues its predecessor’s tradition of sprawling fantasy exploration with a darker, more dangerous edge. Available on DOS a...

Pit Fighter is a 1991 fighting game that brings brutal underground combat to the computer with a gritty atmosphere and intense one-on-one battles. Players choose fighters with diff...

Before Diablo made clicking on dungeons cool, DarkSpyre was already throwing players into labyrinths filled with monsters and puzzles. Released in 1990, it combines hack-and-slash ...

Alien Breed: Tower Assault (1994) takes everything you loved about the original - creepy corridors, limited ammo, sudden death - and adds something revolutionary for the time: non-...

After publishing a plethora of Gold Box titles, SSI decided to release a fantasy RPG based on the Forgotten Realms scenarios of Dungeons & Dragons where the player could create...

Released in 1988, Dream Zone was a surreal adventure where you explore your own subconscious after being sucked into a dream machine. It’s colorful, strange, and often unsett...

Ah, Death Knights of Krynn—a 1991 RPG where you fight hordes of undead in the Dragonlance universe. SSI’s Gold Box series wasn’t known for holding your hand, and ...

Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos continues the adventures of Ryu Hayabusa with even more enemies, more danger, and a title that makes it very clear that the sword situation ...

Klax takes the familiar tile-matching concept and adds speed, pressure, and just enough chaos to keep players constantly on edge. Colored tiles race toward the bottom of the screen...