abandonware games sorted by popularity

MicroLeague Wrestling is an abandoned wrestling action game based on the WWF league, developed by MicroLeague Multimedia and released in 1989 for DOS. MicroLeague Wrestling was als...

Mario Bros VGA is a fan made remake of the original Mario Bros by Nintendo, the game that popularized the character of Mario, the Italian plumber that first appeared in Donkey Kong...

Arx Fatalis is basically what happens when someone takes “dungeons and dragons” way too literally. You start trapped in a gloomy underground world because—oops&md...

Nitemare 3D is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by David P. Gray under the Gray Design Associates label. It was released in 1994 as a follow-up to the earl...

Released in 1987, Dark Castle is infamous for two things: its moody castle setting and its protagonist’s uncanny ability to slip on stairs as if they’re coated in banan...

Gnome Ranger is an abandoned fantasy adventure game, developed and published by Level 9 Computing in 1987 for DOS. Gnome Ranger was designed by Peter Austin who also designed the s...

Ever wondered what it’s like to fly inches from another jet’s tail while defying both gravity and common sense? Blue Angels: Formation Flight Simulation (1989, DOS) tri...

Car Builder is less about speed and more about spreadsheets—just with axles. In this 1982 gem, you don’t race cars, you design them. From gear ratios to weight distribu...

Often overlooked, Falcon AT from 1988 is an interesting hybrid that tries to bridge hardcore simulation with a slightly more accessible presentation. While it still respects the se...

Before the IOC cracked down on fun, Caveman Ugh-Lympics gave us the primeval sporting event we never knew we needed. Clubs, fire, and the 100-meter mate drag—yes, that’...

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...

Motorcycle racing has never looked so… polygonal. Team Suzuki puts you in the leather suit of a professional racer hurtling around pixel-perfect tracks. The controls are twi...

What if Leisure Suit Larry and Monkey Island had a love child in outer space, raised by gender-swapped aliens? You’d get Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender-Bender, a hilarious...

Despite its title, Endless Horror doesn’t go for cheap jump scares—it prefers the slow, creeping kind of dread that seeps in while you stare at murky DOS graphics and w...

If Doom and Laser Tag had a baby raised by dial-up modems, it would be 3D Cyber Blaster. Released in 1992, this shooter has you blasting neon enemies in a world that looks like a T...

This 1992 casino sim for DOS drops you into the neon-soaked carpet jungle of the Four Queens Hotel in Vegas. There’s no plot, no hero’s journey - just you, a digital ba...

Based on the cult fantasy novels by Roger Zelazny, 9 Princes in Amber is a 1985 text adventure that assumes two things: you’ve read the books, and you enjoy typing things lik...

From the dusty archives of 1995 DOS gaming comes Zorro, a side-scrolling platformer that asks the question: what if the legendary masked hero had the reflexes of a hungover sloth? ...

Snake Logan is back, and this time the lab is... hidden! The Hidden Lab cranks up the challenge with more grotesque mutants, more lethal traps, and slightly improved sarcasm. It&rs...