abandonware games sorted by popularity

Knights of the Sky (1990, DOS) throws you into the cockpit of a biplane during WWI, where every dogfight is a dance of death and machine oil. With dynamic campaigns and customizabl...

No, not that Battlestar. Battlestar (1996) is more obscure than a reboot that never happened. Set in deep space with a top-down view and UI only a Windows 3.x user could love, it m...

Cirque de Zale is a point-and-click adventure game released in 2004, developed by Rebecca Clements as a freeware title. Created using the Adventure Game Studio (AGS) engine, the ga...

Before open-world RPGs let you be anyone, Dusk of the Gods made you a literal Viking demigod with a bad temper and worse manners. Released in 1991, it blends Norse mythology with t...

X-Men 2: The Fall of the Mutants is a curious blend of action and light strategy, where Marvel’s famous mutants get to stretch their powers across a series of loosely connected m...

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...

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...

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space is a science fiction roguelike game developed by Digital Eel. Originally released in 2005, it is the sequel to Strange Adventures in Infinite...

Shanghai II: Dragon’s Eye (1990, Windows 3.x/Mac) takes the serene logic of mahjong solitaire and wraps it in a calm, almost meditative presentation. Tiles stack in intricate...

In Black Crown (1995), you play as a prince with a very punchable name, trying to reclaim his rightful throne by solving puzzles and dying a lot. It's one of those DOS-era games wh...

Dangerous Dave: Risky Rescue puts Dave back in hero mode, diving into a dangerous compound to rescue his brother. Expect tight platforming, unpredictable enemy patterns, and traps ...

For those who got hopelessly addicted to the card game inside Final Fantasy VIII, Triple Triad Gold (2000) was like someone saying, “Here, now you can ruin your productivity ...

Highway Hunter combines driving and shooting in a way that feels both chaotic and entertaining. The concept is simple, survive while dealing with whatever the road throws at you, b...

Not many people know that the first games created by Sid Meier were flight simulations. Solo Flight was published by MicroProse in 1983 for Commodore 64, Apple II, Atari, and a yea...

Dominus (1994) is what happens when a tower defense game and an RPG get thrown into a medieval blender. You’re tasked with defending your castle from wave after wave of enemi...

Panza Kick Boxing is a video game released in 1990 for the Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, DOS, and ZX Spectrum platforms. It was developed and published by Loriciel. T...

When Strider (1989, DOS) hit PCs, gamers suddenly felt like ninjas who’d been dropped into a Cold War fever dream. You play as Hiryu, a futuristic assassin slicing through me...