abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released during the holiday season of 1993, _Jetpack: Christmas Special_ wraps the classic gameplay of Jetpack in festive decorations and seasonal cheer. Beneath the snow-covered v...

Before there were AAA games with 100GB installs, there was Amulet of Yendor, a rogue-like so old-school it might as well come with a floppy disk and a sandwich bag of D&D dice....

Luigi and Spaghetti (1992, DOS) sounds like a dinner order but is actually an educational puzzle adventure. You guide a tiny robot named Luigi (no, not that one) through logic puzz...

ShadowForce (1994, DOS) is what happens when someone decides subtlety is overrated and replaces it with explosions. This tactical action romp drops you into a near-future mess of m...

Visual Basic 3 (VB3) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) released by Microsoft in 1993. It is part of the Visual Basic (VB) series, which is know...

Feudal Japan gets the wargame treatment in Conquest of Japan, a strategy title that mixes historical context with tactical ambition. You manage provinces, wage war, and occasionall...

The Invaders is a straightforward arcade-style shooter built around one of gaming's oldest and most reliable ideas: things are flying toward you, so shoot them before they become y...

When Two Worlds War is a strategy game built around the uncomfortable proposition that diplomacy has failed and the only remaining argument involves fleets, armies, and industrial ...

Don’t let the tongue-twister title fool you—Divine Divinity is a classic in the sprawling world of RPGs. Think of it as Diablo’s eccentric cousin who insists on t...

Soul Crystal is a Japanese-style role-playing adventure built around exploration, battles, character development, and a fantasy story involving magic and mysterious powers. Players...

QBasic Nibbles is the famous little snake game that introduced countless budding programmers to the joys of eating dots while avoiding your own increasingly inconvenient tail. Base...

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...

MegaRace is a futuristic racing game that combines high-speed driving with an unusually strong dose of television-show theatrics. Races take place on strange tracks filled with obs...

Flame Dragon Plus: Marks of Wind is a Japanese-style role-playing game with a strong emphasis on fantasy adventure, character development, exploration, and tactical battles. Player...

Volkswriter 3 is a classic DOS word processor from an era when replacing a typewriter with a computer was still a genuinely transformative idea. It provides the basic tools needed ...

With a title like Pray for Death, you know you’re not signing up for a cheerful platformer. This is a fighting game with a gothic, heavy-metal aesthetic that screams 1996. It...

Navcom 6: The Persian Gulf Defense is a 1988 naval combat simulation that places the player in command of a warship during a tense military conflict. The game focuses on managing n...

Zyclunt is a side-scrolling action game developed and published by Phantagram in 1995. The game is set in a dystopian future where incurable diseases and a rise in criminal activit...

Roll up, roll up! Circus Attractions turns your PC into a low-resolution big top full of minigames, each one zanier than the last. Think clown juggling, lion taming, and tightrope ...

Ka-50 Hokum drops players into the cockpit of one of the Soviet Union's most intimidating attack helicopters and expects them to earn their wings the hard way. This is not an arcad...

Despite the ominous title, Caverns of Chaos (1992) plays like the lovechild of rogue-like masochism and old-school dungeon crawling. There’s loot, traps, monsters, and more w...

Austerlitz recreates one of Napoleon's most famous victories as a historical strategy game, putting the player in the middle of the Battle of Austerlitz. The focus is firmly on bat...

Math Circus (1993) is proof that educational games in the DOS era were either unbearably boring or secretly brilliant — and this one leans heavily toward the second category....

Released in 1983, this is your grandpa’s Battleship—minus the plastic pegs, but with all the tension of blind naval warfare. There are no fancy graphics, no Hollywood e...

NCSA Mosaic was one of the earliest web browsers to appear on the market. It was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illino...

PC Paintbrush is an early computer painting program that helped make graphical drawing accessible on IBM-compatible PCs. Released in 1984, it arrived when using a computer to creat...

Combat Chess (1997, Windows XP) takes the cerebral game of kings and adds swords, screams, and shameless violence. Every piece battle-animates into Mortal Kombat-lite fights when y...

The Bugs Bunny Hare-Brained Adventure is a cheerful platform adventure that puts the world's most famous rabbit through a succession of oddball situations, puzzles, enemies, and ca...

Super Stardust is a fast-paced space shooter that throws the player into a colorful galaxy filled with enemies, asteroids, power-ups, and the sort of screen activity that makes bli...

Clyde is back—and this time, he's mad. Clyde's Revenge brings more levels, more traps, and slightly less mercy. Everything’s cranked up: the challenge, the mazes, the p...