abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before AI could annihilate grandmasters, Psion Chess was already humbling humans back in 1985. Available for DOS and Macintosh, this game wasn’t flashy, but it didn’t n...

Iron Blood (1996, DOS) is the kind of fighting game that makes you wonder if robots really need martial arts lessons. The story is wafer-thin—something about futuristic warri...

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...

Great Naval Battles: North Atlantic 1939-1943 sets the stage for the series with a focus on tense, strategic encounters. In Great Naval Battles, you are dealing with limited inform...

Before Football Manager consumed the souls of soccer nerds everywhere, there was Club Football: The Manager. It’s all spreadsheets, transfers, and managing egos with egos. Th...

Post-apocalyptic survival meets real estate management in Burntime, where the world is ruined, but you still need to hire employees and secure water rights. It’s like Mad Max...

Goal! is one of those football games that reminds you how far sports simulations have come—and how much fun they were before realism took over. The controls are simple, the p...

Swap is a puzzle game built around a wonderfully simple idea: rearrange things until the board behaves itself. Released in 1992, it challenges the player with increasingly tricky a...

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...

Great Naval Battles vol. 5: Demise of the Dreadnoughts takes you back even further, exploring naval warfare at a time when technology and tactics were evolving rapidly. In Great Na...

McDonald Land (1992) is one of the strangest brand tie-ins ever to grace DOS, and that’s saying something. You play as Ronald McDonald himself, jumping across colorful platfo...

The Battle of the Bulge: Tigers in the Snow is a detailed World War II strategy game focused on the German offensive in the Ardennes during the winter of 1944. Released in 1982, it...

Army Men 2 doubles down on everything from the first game - more weapons, more plastic carnage, more trips to “The Real World” where you fight in bathtubs and backyards...

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...

Superstar Ice Hockey brings the rough-and-tumble world of hockey to the computer with a distinctly old-school approach. Released in 1987, it focuses on the essentials: skating, pas...

X-Men 2: The Fall of the Mutants is a curious blend of action and light strategy, where Marvel’s famous mutants get to stretch their powers across a series of loosely connected m...

Supernova is a classic science-fiction adventure that puts the player in the uncomfortable position of having to save the galaxy while also figuring out what the game actually expe...

Caesars Palace is a casino simulation from Interplay that turns the glitzy Las Vegas resort into a collection of games, tables, and temptations. Roulette, blackjack, craps, slots, ...

Spy vs Spy 3: Arctic Antics is a 1988 action game featuring the wonderfully destructive rivalry between the two monochrome spies from the classic comic strip. This time the ridicul...

Sports games from the late 1980s often relied on imagination as much as graphics, and Magic Johnson's Basketball is no exception. Featuring the NBA legend himself, it delivers fast...

TomeNET is a multiplayer roguelike that takes the old-school Angband formula and turns it into something considerably more sociable, dangerous, and unpredictable. Instead of wander...

S.T.U.N. Runner is a 1990 DOS conversion of Atari's futuristic arcade racer, throwing players into a high-speed world of twisting tracks, jumps, enemies, and spectacular obstacles....

Santa Paravia en Fiumaccio is a 1988 DOS adaptation of the classic economic and political strategy game in which players attempt to rule a small Italian principality. The objective...

The Final Battle is a fantasy strategy game built around the sort of grand confrontation that its title promises, with armies, heroes, enemies, and a world apparently determined to...

Exile II: Crystal Souls is the kind of RPG that quietly sneaks into your life and then refuses to leave your thoughts. Released in 1996, it looks humble, even a bit scruffy, but be...

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 ...

Superbike Challenge is a motorcycle racing game that puts speed, control, and sharp corners ahead of elaborate simulation. Players take to the track on powerful bikes and compete i...

Crystal Caves is a bright, cheerful platformer starring Mylo Steamwitz, an entrepreneur whose business plan involves raiding dangerous alien caves for profit. The levels are full o...

The Blue & the Gray is a strategy game built around the American Civil War, giving players the chance to command forces on either side of the conflict. Released in 1993, it focuses...

Ball Race is a compact racing game built around the deceptively simple idea of controlling a rolling ball while trying to stay ahead of the competition. Instead of roaring engines ...