abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1990 for DOS, Soviet is a cold war thriller that plays out like an interactive spy novel. You’re an American journalist turned reluctant agent, caught in a tangle...

Colosso Secret (1997, DOS) is the moody prequel/sequel/parallel universe to Colosso Revenge, where secrets abound and subtlety is tossed out the window. Imagine Indiana Jones in a ...

Football Fanatic (1998, DOS) is pure arcade chaos dressed in cleats. It doesn’t care much for the finer tactical nuances of the sport; it wants you sprinting, tackling, and g...

In the Dead of Night is one of those mid-90s DOS oddities that feels like it crawled straight out of a programmer’s personal nightmares. Part adventure, part horror, and part...

Silicon Dreams by Level 9 Computing is a trilogy of interactive fiction (text adventure) games released in the mid-1980s. The trilogy includes three separate games: Snowball, Retur...

The Third Courier is an abandoned (atypical) adventure / role playing game set in Berlin during the cold war era and, of course, it's a spy game. The Third Courier was developed by...

Unreal Gold is a first-person shooter (FPS) video game developed by Epic MegaGames and published by GT Interactive. It was originally released in 1998 for Windows. Unreal Gold is a...

The name Carnage says it all—this top-down racer is less about precision driving and more about smashing into your enemies until they resemble digital roadkill. It’s fa...

Dangerous Streets is a fighting game that clearly wanted to be the next Street Fighter—and instead became a cult oddity. The character roster is bizarre, the animations oddly...

Sierra Championship Boxing is an abandoned sports boxing game, developed by Evryware and released by Sierra On-Line in 1985. You can issue instructions to the boxer between rounds,...

Welcome aboard, Captain! Advanced Destroyer Simulator throws you into the high seas with all the firepower and radar beeps a '90s DOS machine can handle. Manage torpedoes, dodge de...

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...

With a name like Genocide (1996), you know you’re not in for a lighthearted romp. This DOS platformer is dark, moody, and filled with enemies that seem genetically engineered...

Zangband is a variant of the popular roguelike game Angband. Zangband, short for Zelazny Angband, was developed by Chris Weisiger and first released in 1994. The game features...

Set in the far-off future of 1992, Battle Chess 4000 brings space-age flair to intergalactic checkmate. Now your queen is a laser-wielding dominatrix and your pawns might be robots...

Eye of Horus, released in 1989, is a puzzle-adventure that leans heavily into atmosphere and mystery. Drawing inspiration from ancient Egyptian mythology, the game challenges playe...