abandonware games sorted by popularity

Wolfenstein 3D is the first-person shooter that popularized the whole genre in the early 90s and is considered one of the greatest games ever made. Wolfenstein 3D was designed by John Romero and Tom Hall (id Software) and released...

Welcome to the most stressful job in the world - rendered in glorious 1985 DOS graphics! Air Traffic Controller lets you experience the thrill of herding aircraft without the luxury of coffee breaks or radar resolution. It’s...

Star General is a turn-based strategy game developed by Catware and published by SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.). It was released in 1996 for MS-DOS and later for Windows. The game is set in a science fiction universe where play...

Ah, Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior—the game where loincloths are tiny and sword swings are deadly. This 1989 fighter slashed its way onto DOS with decapitations, grunts, and enough low-res gore to make Conan blush. Forget f...

Dope Wars is a text-based simulation game that originated as a DOS program in the early 1980s, but gained popularity in its Windows version released in 1998. The game puts players in the role of a drug dealer navigating the underg...

Carmageddon was a controversial and violent vehicular combat / car racing game, where the player must compete against a number of computer controlled opponents. Running over pedestrians and damaging opponents cars grant time bonus...

Before Virtua Tennis, there was this: 4D Sports Tennis, where physics and pixels politely shake hands and then forget why they were introduced. Released in 1990 for DOS, this game lets you relive the glory of tennis with character...

Armaeth: The Lost Kingdom looks like a cousin of Prince of Persia who dropped out of school to study magic mushrooms. You play a vaguely heroic dude exploring a crumbling kingdom full of traps, bats, and possibly regret. The platf...

Ski or Die is a winter sports-themed video game that was originally released in 1990 for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The game was developed by Electronic Arts and was a follow-up to their earl...

Think of Bass Tour (1992) as the road trip version of virtual fishing. More simulation than arcade, it lets you travel, pick locations, study conditions, and obsess over bait types like you're preparing for a National Geographic s...

Bomb Run (1991, DOS) sounds like an action-packed thriller—and then you play it and realize you’re just trying to drop bombs in the right spots while flying what feels like a pixelated paper airplane. The game has that...