abandonware games sorted by popularity

Fans of Dragonlance novels rejoiced at Dark Queen of Krynn, a Gold Box RPG where you battle alongside iconic heroes in a desperate fight against Takhisis, the dark goddess herself....

In this 1992 platformer, you control a small, shaggy blue demon navigating a dungeon filled with enemies. Jump, dodge, and collect items as you progress through levels. It's like p...

Power Drift feels like a rollercoaster decided it wanted to be a racing game. The tracks are tilted, twisted, and occasionally seem designed by an architect who had a personal grud...

Austerlitz 1805 is another computer interpretation of the Battle of Austerlitz, concentrating on the strategic and tactical decisions surrounding Napoleon's celebrated victory. The...

American Conquest is the kind of game that throws hundreds of little soldiers at you and says, "Good luck, General!" Set during the early colonization of the Americas, this RTS ble...

Back in 1989, David Wolf: Secret Agent tried really hard to make you feel like James Bond. You get car chases, fistfights, and enough cheesy dialogue to fill an action movie marath...

Norton Editor 2 is a text editor built for the DOS environment, aimed at users who needed something more capable than a basic command-line editor without requiring an enormous word...

Released in 1988, Decisive Battles of the American Civil War: Vol. 1 is as straightforward as its title. You get historical accuracy, a serious strategy engine, and about as many g...

Lynx is a text-based web browser that became famous for doing something that sounds almost impossible to younger computer users: browsing the World Wide Web without displaying pict...

Premier Manager 2 polished the formula, giving football nerds even more stats to obsess over. If you thought juggling line-ups and balancing books was fun in the first game, this s...

Imagine X-COM but with fewer excuses to blame the developers when you miss a 95% chance shot—because in UFO 2000 (2004), the chaos was entirely player-driven. A free, open-so...

Ford Simulator 3 (1992, DOS) pushes the formula further, polishing visuals and adding enough variety to feel like a modest evolution rather than a simple update. The driving segmen...

Dark, moody, and surprisingly mature, Manhattan Missions takes the Turtles into gritty territory. The city is under siege, Shredder’s back, and the atmosphere feels more Batm...

Jump 'n Bump proves that rabbits can be surprisingly competitive. Released in 1998, this multiplayer-focused platform game pits adorable bunnies against one another in frantic matc...

Dark Side (1988) is a first-person sci-fi adventure set on a moon orbiting a planet that’s about to be destroyed. No pressure. The gameplay combines exploration with puzzle-s...

Epic Pinball is what happens when a small team says, “Sure, let’s make a pinball game,” and accidentally creates one of the most addictive shareware hits of the d...

Hotshot is an arcade-style action game designed around quick reactions and straightforward challenges. The premise is simple enough to understand almost immediately, but succeeding...

Magnetik Tank is a classic arcade-style tank game that mixes shooting with the unusual idea suggested by its title: magnets. Rather than simply driving around and blasting everythi...

This 1994 naval strategy game for DOS is based on the board game of the same name, which means you’ll spend more time squinting at menus than blowing up ships. It’s cer...

Infocom really went off the rails with Nord and Bert, and bless them for it. This is a text adventure not about dragons or spaceships, but about puns. Yes, literal wordplay puzzles...

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...

Acrobat Reader was the first of a family of application software developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Acrobat...

Star Control 3 continues the series' blend of space exploration, alien diplomacy, strategy, and combat, taking players back into a galaxy populated by numerous civilizations with t...

Antix (1985) is Snake, but with a death wish. Created by the same mad genius behind Tetris, this game takes the familiar snake-trail mechanic and cranks it to eleven. You’ve ...

Xmas Lemmings takes the familiar formula of guiding tiny, clueless creatures to safety and wraps it in festive cheer. The levels are themed around the holiday season, complete with...

P47 Thunderbolt is a 1990 side-scrolling shooter that puts players in the cockpit of the legendary Republic P-47 fighter aircraft during the Second World War. The mission is wonder...

Crash Garrett is a pulp-inspired adventure that puts the player in the role of a tough, wisecracking hero caught up in a mystery filled with danger, suspicious characters, and old-...

From the people who brought you Dungeons & Dragons, here's Blood & Magic (1996), the RTS that nobody remembers but definitely deserves a second glance. You summon golems fr...

XQuest offers a blend of action and exploration, creating a gameplay loop that feels both dynamic and rewarding. It encourages players to experiment, try different approaches, and ...

X-COM: Alliance is one of those legendary “what could have been” titles, a fascinating ghost in gaming history rather than a fully realized experience. Originally envisioned as...