abandonware games sorted by popularity

TomeNET (Troubles of Middle Earth, Net) is an online, multiplayer rogue-like game set in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. It’s a persistent-world game inspired by ...

1990’s Back to the Future Part 2 for DOS is a game that tries very hard to be as confusing as time travel itself. You’re Marty McFly, zipping between timelines, avoidin...

Part interactive novel, part point-and-click adventure, Daughter of Serpents (1992) is one of those games that makes you feel like you stumbled onto a forgotten pulp novel. Set in ...

Turns out war is a lot tidier when it’s turn-based. Battle Isle (1991) gives you neat little hexagons to move your units on, like a very angry board game. It’s got stra...

Shadowlands is a video game released in 1992 for MS-DOS and Amiga platforms. Developed by Teque London Ltd and published by Domark, it's an isometric action-adventure RPG with puzz...

Black Hole (1993) is a space shooter where you're thrown into the gravitational madness of, you guessed it, a black hole. The physics are wild, the enemies are relentless, and you&...

Ishido (1990, DOS/Mac) is the digital version of sitting in a Zen garden and realizing you’re terrible at strategy. The game’s premise is simple: place stones on a grid...

Before realistic fighting games, there was Boxer Rebellion—a 1982 title so primitive, it makes Pong look flashy. It’s boxing with fewer rules and more pixels per punch....

Dungeon Explorer takes the term “dungeon” very seriously—there’s a lot of it, and not much else. Released in 1990, this top-down adventure is part RPG, part...

In Scapeghost (1989), you’re not just dead—you’re also on the clock. As police officer Alan Chance, recently murdered and newly spectral, you’ve got one las...

Strap in and squint at the horizon—Advanced Tactical Fighter 2 wants you to dogfight like it’s the Cold War and your joystick is a weapon of mass confusion. Released in...

DBGL is a free and open-source frontend for DOSBox available for many platforms, developed in Java.

Master of Magic is a turn based 4x strategy game developed by SimTex and published by the well know Microprose, very similar to Civilization, with a fantasy twist. You play as a wi...

By 1989, Dragon’s Lair had already become legendary in arcades, so its DOS port had a lot to live up to. Spoiler: it couldn’t quite match the arcade’s gorgeous la...