abandonware games sorted by popularity

Car Builder is less about speed and more about spreadsheets—just with axles. In this 1982 gem, you don’t race cars, you design them. From gear ratios to weight distribu...

Mad Show turns the circus into an unexpectedly demanding platform adventure where performers face considerably more danger than enthusiastic applause. Jumping, climbing, and avoidi...

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...

Released in 1987, Falcon is the kind of flight simulator that politely informs you, within minutes, that you are not nearly as smart as you thought. This isn’t an arcade joyr...

Hard Drivin' 2 takes everything its predecessor attempted and pushes it a little further, like a sequel that insists it has matured but still enjoys causing vehicular embarrassment...

Elevator is one of those early arcade-style games that sounds boring on paper and becomes oddly stressful in practice. You’re navigating elevators, rescuing people, and avoid...

Enchanter is interactive fiction with teeth. As a text adventure, it relies entirely on imagination, yet it manages to feel richer than many graphical games of its era. You play as...

Italicized title: Jack Nicklaus' Unlimited Golf & Course Design. More than a sports simulation, this title became a toolbox for golf fans eager to build and share their dream c...

WaxWorks (1992, DOS/Mac) is a horror game that doesn’t just want to scare you—it wants to traumatize you a little. Set in cursed wax museum exhibits, each scenario drop...

King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table blends medieval legend with strategy and role-playing, inviting players to gather brave knights while protecting Camelot from all manner of...

Inspector Gadget: Global Terror! takes everyone’s favorite bionic klutz and hands him a globe-trotting mission to stop M.A.D.—which is roughly as risky as giving a todd...

Based on Piers Anthony’s pun-filled fantasy world, Companions of Xanth is like walking into a joke book that got lost in a spellbook. You play a guy from the "real world" suc...

Shadows Over Riva caps the trilogy with a confident stride. The graphics receive a welcome upgrade, the atmosphere takes a darker turn, and the narrative leans heavily into detecti...

Fort Apache drops you into the Old West with the subtlety of a saloon door kicked off its hinges. Strategy and action mingle as you defend your frontier outpost from relentless att...

Pit Fighter is an arcade-style fighting game that was originally released in arcades in 1990 by Atari Games. It was later ported to various home gaming platforms, including DOS, th...

Ever wanted to design a roller coaster so terrifying it’d make your pixelated patrons vomit in joy? Coaster is your twisted playground. Build loops, dives, and stomach-churni...

Stormlord is an abandoned DOS platform game set in a fantasy world, developed and published by Hewson Consultants in 1989 and designed by Raffaele Cecco. There was some controversy...

Originally released in 1986, Larn is a classic roguelike that wastes absolutely no time reminding players that dungeon exploration is a dangerous profession. Every descent into its...

Heimdall blends action and strategy in a way that feels ambitious, placing you in a mythological setting where decisions matter as much as reflexes. Managing resources, recruiting ...

Yes, Dolphin Boating Simulator is a real thing, and no, it’s not about dolphins driving boats (sadly). Released in 1988, this oddball DOS sim tasks you with navigating speedb...

If you’ve ever wanted to feel intellectually inferior to a few hundred lines of 1981 code, Chess is your game. This digital board doesn’t bother with graphics flair or ...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens&mdash...

The sequel to Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch, Return to Ringworld throws you back into Larry Niven’s vast sci-fi universe—except this time, the puzzles are tougher...