abandonware games sorted by popularity

Dark Legions is a 1994 strategy gem that asks: what if Archon got a DOS makeover with bloodier battles? You command armies of fantastical creatures, from vampires to trolls, across...

Goody throws you into the shoes of a small-time thief in a colorful, chaotic city that feels like it was designed by someone who really wanted to punish jump timing. As you sneak a...

Paperboy 2 expands the original concept by introducing new routes, additional hazards, and even more opportunities for suburban chaos. Delivering newspapers remains the central obj...

If you’ve ever looked at Tetris and thought, “This needs to be in 3D and way harder,” then BlockOut 2 (2000) is your kind of punishment. This brain-melter takes f...

Pacific Islands is a 1992 military strategy game that continues the campaign begun in Battle Isle, transporting players to a chain of tropical battlefields where beautiful scenery ...

Arachne is a graphical web browser for DOS. Arachne was developed by Michal Polák and released in the early 1990s as a text-mode web browser with limited graphical capabilit...

The Great War: 1914 - 1918 is a historical strategy game focused on the First World War, a conflict where “just move forward” was famously not an especially successful tactical...

Imagine Tetris went on a sugar binge and had an identity crisis. That’s Zyconix (1992, DOS) in a nutshell. It’s a tile-matching puzzle game where nothing quite behaves ...

Hollywood Squares brings the classic TV game show to your computer, complete with trivia questions and a grid of personalities who may or may not be telling the truth. Released in ...

Ace 2.02 is one of those wonderfully obscure DOS utilities that feels like a small piece of computing archaeology. Rather than trying to impress with flashy graphics or elaborate p...

Slipstream 5000 is a 1995 futuristic racing game that combines high-speed driving with weapons and aggressive competition. Players pilot advanced vehicles across a variety of track...

The Ancient Art of War in the Skies completes the series' journey from land to sea and finally into the air. Released in 1992, it brings strategic warfare into an aviation setting,...

Released in 1983 for DOS, Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator is what happens when early arcade design meets Federation bureaucracy. Vector-style graphics make you feel like ...

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’...

Italicized title: Jack in the Dark. Released as a small holiday-themed adventure, this game serves as a charming introduction to the style later made famous by Alone in the Dark. P...

Named after the famously outspoken baseball manager, Earl Weaver Baseball takes the sport seriously, sometimes almost aggressively so. This isn’t about flashy graphics or arc...

Shooting Gallery is a 1990 DOS action game built around the simple and immediately understandable pleasure of aiming at targets and trying to hit them. Players face a variety of sh...

Superbike Challenge is a motorcycle racing game that puts speed, control, and sharp corners ahead of elaborate simulation. Players take to the track on powerful bikes and compete i...

Released in 1994 for DOS, Iron Cross is a historical strategy game that tries very hard to make military planning look sexy. Spoiler: it doesn’t. You’re dealing with Wo...

Evets is a puzzle game that proves simplicity can be deceptive. With minimal graphics and a straightforward premise, it invites you in gently before revealing its true complexity. ...

With Gary Grigsby’s War in Russia, the scale somehow gets even bigger, and the margin for error even smaller. This is strategy at its most unforgiving, where moving a unit on...

Long before indie developers made “roguelike” a buzzword, someone decided to fuse Doom with permadeath and ASCII graphics. The result: Doom: The Roguelike (2005). On pa...

A remake of the arcade classic, CHAMP Asteroids lets you relive the joy of spinning wildly in space and smashing rocks with a tiny triangle-shaped ship. It’s like cosmic road...

Shawl (1986, DOS) is a lesser-known title that carries the unmistakable spirit of mid-80s experimentation. With simple graphics and straightforward mechanics, it focuses on tight g...

Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego? sends players across the continent in pursuit of Carmen and her increasingly slippery gang of thieves. The basic formula is wonderfully effectiv...

In Diggers 2: Extractors, released in 1995, the digging franchise doubled down on strategy while adding a dash of science fiction flair. This time, your miners aren’t just bu...

The all new Family Feud brings the classic TV game show into your home, complete with survey questions and the eternal struggle to guess what other people are thinking. It’s simp...

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...

Sirwood throws you into a fantasy kingdom where the trees are friendlier than some of the locals. Half strategy, half adventure, it's the kind of game that expects you to think, pl...

Designed by sci-fi author Syd Mead, CyberRace combines futuristic vehicle design with high-speed competition. The result is a visually striking racer that feels like it came straig...