abandonware games sorted by popularity

Rings of Medusa is a strategy / RPG developed by the German studio Starbyte Software. It was released in 1989 for various platforms including the Commodore 64, Amiga, and MS-DOS.&n...

Darius Gaiden is a visually stunning side-scrolling shooter where every boss is a giant, weaponized sea creature from a neon-soaked fever dream. You’ll pilot your ship throug...

X-COM: Terror from the Deep (also known as X-COM 2) is a DOS science fiction tactical strategy game and the sequel to one of the most popular DOS games in history, X-COM: UFO ...

Manic Miner is a quintessential platformer game that emerged in the early 1980s, developed by Matthew Smith for the ZX Spectrum. It stands as a hallmark of the 8-bit gaming era, ce...

D-Day: The Beginning of the End is not your average “storm the beach” simulator—it’s a grand strategy title that drops you into the nerve-wracking planning ...

Crazy Nick’s Roger Wilco’s Spaced Out Games Pack hands the Space Quest janitor a stack of silly mini-games to keep him from accidentally saving the galaxy again. Expect...

X-COM: Apocalypse takes the familiar alien invasion formula and tosses it into a sprawling futuristic city, where things feel both more chaotic and oddly more personal. Instead of ...

Galactic Battle is a straightforward space shooter that comes from the proud tradition of “tiny ship versus unreasonable number of aliens.” The premise is simple: you p...

The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time is the third chapter in The Journeyman Project series. It's a science fiction adventure game developed by Presto Studios, designed by Phil ...

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...

Ah, Death Knights of Krynn—a 1991 RPG where you fight hordes of undead in the Dragonlance universe. SSI’s Gold Box series wasn’t known for holding your hand, and ...

Helter Skelter feels like a delightful experiment in chaos, the kind of game that throws ideas at the wall just to see which ones stick. With its quirky mechanics and slightly unhi...

Udoiana Raunes is one of those late-DOS curiosities that feels like it escaped from a developer’s hard drive by accident. It presents itself as a fantasy adventure, but quick...

Before million-dollar stadiums and sponsorship deals, there was Street Sports Baseball (1987, DOS)—where kids played in backyards, on cracked concrete, and sometimes next to ...

This 1989 DOS game has you hunting down demons in a dark, pixelated world. Equip yourself with weapons, explore eerie environments, and face off against otherworldly creatures. It'...

Dark Sun 2: Wake of the Ravager takes the harsh desert world of Athas and turns up the intensity. Building on its predecessor, it offers deeper role-playing, improved combat, and a...

Released in the mid-’80s, Earthly delights is an odd, almost poetic little DOS title that feels more like an experiment than a traditional game. It blends abstract visuals wi...

The sequel nobody expected but everyone button-mashed through. Yie Ar Kung Fu 2 adds more characters, more chaos, and less coherence. This time you’re Lee (no relation to Bru...

In Reunion, you return to a solar system that’s moved on without you—like showing up to your own birthday party two centuries late. Your mission? Rebuild civilization, ...