abandonware games sorted by popularity

Twilight 2000 drops you into a grim alternate future where global conflict has gone spectacularly wrong, and survival is less about heroics and more about scraping by. Released in ...

Star Command is a 1988 DOS space strategy game that gives players command of a futuristic vessel and asks them to deal with exploration, combat, crew management, and the many probl...

Sokoban is one of those puzzle games whose rules can be explained in a sentence and whose harder levels can destroy an afternoon. The player controls a character inside a warehouse...

In Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventures, you’re a green alien kid with suction-cup hands who’s crash-landed on a strange planet. It’s a platformer with bright visuals,...

ATAC (1992) is what you get when someone says, “What if we made SimCity, but for waging the War on Drugs?” You play as the head of an anti-narcotics task force, deployi...

Rambo 3 is a 1988 action game inspired by the popular film, putting players in the role of John Rambo during a dangerous military mission. The gameplay combines shooting, movement,...

Ocean Ranger is a 1988 simulation that places the player in command of an offshore oil platform, which sounds like a perfectly calm occupation until you remember that the ocean, ma...

Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans is one of gaming’s most famous “what could have been” stories. Designed as a point-and-click adventure set in the Warcraft ...

Rather than retreading the campaign formula of its predecessor, Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games focused on standalone tactical missions and competitive play. Released in 1996, it off...

Pitstop 2 is a 1984 racing game that focuses on endurance driving, strategy, and the surprisingly important task of maintaining a vehicle during competition. Players race around tr...

Operation: Inner Space is a 1994 Windows 3.x game that takes players on a strange journey through the microscopic world inside the human body. Rather than exploring distant planets...

Heirs to the Throne is one of those strategy titles that feels like it was designed by someone who truly enjoys watching players sweat over decisions. Set in a vaguely medieval pol...

Ah, Dizzy—the little egg that could. Released in 1987, this puzzle-platformer puts you in the delicate shell of an egg who somehow manages to roll, jump, and carry objects wi...

Creatures is an unusual life-simulation game built around the idea that virtual creatures should actually behave like living things. You hatch small Norns, teach them, feed them, p...

Normality is a first-person adventure video game developed by Gremlin Interactive and released in 1996. The game is set in a dystopian future where a totalitarian regime known as t...

Screamer 2 is an arcade racing game that aims for speed, spectacle, and the satisfying sensation of making a computer-generated car do things that would probably upset an insurance...

Super 3-D Noah's Ark is an unusual first-person shooter that takes the familiar Wolfenstein-style formula and gives it an extremely unexpected biblical makeover. Instead of battlin...

Robot Rascals is a 1987 DOS strategy and puzzle game featuring mischievous robots and a playful science-fiction setting. Players must manage their mechanical characters while solvi...

Traffic department 2192 imagines a future where keeping the streets safe apparently requires considerably more shooting than most traffic departments would recommend. The game comb...

Fleet Command invites you to command modern naval forces with the calm authority of someone who definitely read the manual. This is strategy on a grand scale: radar screens glowing...

Released in 2005, Lincity NG modernizes the classic city-building formula by placing equal emphasis on economic growth, environmental responsibility, and long-term sustainability. ...

History lessons become unexpectedly adventurous in Mario's Time Machine, where Bowser has stolen priceless historical artifacts and scattered them across different eras. Players tr...

Time and Magik: The Trilogy collects three fantasy adventures into one package, offering a substantial journey through magical worlds filled with puzzles, strange characters and th...

Star Wars Rebellion is a grand strategy game that turns the original trilogy into a massive galactic campaign. Released in 1998, it lets players command either the Rebel Alliance o...

Ween: The Prophecy is a surreal French adventure that mixes fantasy, strange characters, puzzles, and an atmosphere that occasionally feels as though someone has poured a dream int...

Doszip Commander is a file manager for DOS inspired by the classic two-panel approach that became so popular among power users. It allows files and directories to be browsed, copie...

Released in 1990, Logo introduces players to programming concepts through the famous turtle graphics system, transforming coding into an approachable creative activity. Rather than...

Sid Meier's Covert Action is a 1990 DOS espionage game that throws players into the glamorous world of international spying, where gathering information is only slightly less dange...

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...

Ever wanted to read Car and Driver magazine and then actually drive the cars featured in it? Well, someone in 1992 said “why not both?” and Car and Driver the game was ...