abandonware games sorted by popularity

Laxius Power is a traditional Japanese-style role-playing game with a generous helping of exploration, battles, character development, and fantasy melodrama. Its story follows youn...

Moraff's World offers a colorful fantasy role-playing adventure where players explore a large world, battle monsters, gather treasure, and gradually develop a powerful character. T...

Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels is a 1988 DOS adventure inspired by the world of Sherlock Holmes and centered on a mystery involving the British Crown Jewels. Players inve...

Questron II is a role-playing game (RPG) developed by Westwood Associates and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) in 1988. It serves as the sequel to the original Questro...

Secret Agent: The Escape is a 1996 DOS action game built around the adventures of a spy attempting to escape from a dangerous situation. Players navigate hostile environments, over...

Step into the shoes of a medieval lord in this 1991 DOS strategy game. Engage in jousting tournaments, siege castles, and vie for control of England. It's like playing Risk, but wi...

Long before indie developers made “roguelike” a buzzword, someone decided to fuse Doom with permadeath and ASCII graphics. The result: Doom: The Roguelike (2005). On pa...

Star Wars: Dark Forces is a 1995 first-person shooter that brought the Star Wars universe into a darker, more action-oriented setting. Players control Kyle Katarn, a mercenary work...

Chaos Overlords is a cyberpunk-themed strategy game developed by Stick Man Games and published by New World Computing in 1996. Set in a dystopian future, the game focuses on contro...

Released in 1994, Iron Seed is a DOS space sim that tried to be both philosophical and technical. You’re leading a fledgling human colony across the stars, tinkering with dip...

Black Friday (1983) isn’t about shopping mayhem—though you might wish it were after trying to figure out what’s going on. This early DOS title is part stock marke...

Robot Rascals is a 1987 DOS strategy and puzzle game featuring mischievous robots and a playful science-fiction setting. Players must manage their mechanical characters while solvi...

Gateway to the Savage Frontier is a Dungeons & Dragons computer role-playing game released in 1991. It was developed by Beyond Software (later known as Stormfront Studios) and ...

Total Annihilation Kingdoms takes the large-scale real-time strategy formula of its predecessor and moves it into a fantasy setting. Instead of armies of machines, players command ...

Trog is a colourful arcade-style maze game in which you take control of Bubbler, a small dinosaur-like hero with the unenviable task of rescuing eggs while avoiding hostile creatur...

Solo Flight is a classic 1985 flight simulation that puts the player in the cockpit of a small aircraft and focuses on the practical side of flying rather than cinematic dogfights....

Siege is a 1992 DOS strategy game centered on medieval warfare and the difficult business of taking fortified positions. Players command armies and must consider troop placement, a...

When Strider (1989, DOS) hit PCs, gamers suddenly felt like ninjas who’d been dropped into a Cold War fever dream. You play as Hiryu, a futuristic assassin slicing through me...

Part interactive thriller, part newsroom simulator, The President is Missing (1988, DOS) casts you as an investigative journalist trying to unravel a political conspiracy before ev...

Released in 1987, Le Maitre Des Ames delivers an atmospheric French adventure built around mystery, exploration, and supernatural themes. Players gradually uncover unsettling event...

Borland Eureka: the Solver is an abandoned text-based application developed by Borland Software Corporation and released in 1987 for DOS. The product is designed to solve complex p...

Transworld is an old-school strategy title that offers a broad economic and organizational challenge, asking players to manage resources and make decisions within a simulated world...

Transland is a strategy-oriented game built around managing transportation and commercial activity, giving players the opportunity to create and operate a network while attempting ...

Released in 2003, Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader blends classic role-playing mechanics with a richly imagined alternate history where magic and mythology reshape medieval Europe...

The Lost Patrol (1991, DOS) drops you into the brutal jungles of Vietnam, where survival depends on strategy, luck, and maybe divine intervention. You lead a squad of exhausted sol...

Stone Age throws you into a prehistoric world where survival depends on exploration, quick thinking and the occasional willingness to hit something with a very primitive weapon. Ra...

By 1994, LineWars 2 expanded upon the original with enhanced visuals, refined mechanics, and more varied tactical possibilities. Battles require players to adapt quickly while mana...

Zany Golf is what happens when someone says, “Let’s make miniature golf, but with teleporters, hamburgers, and anti-gravity pads.” Part mini-golf simulator, part ...

Based on Anne McCaffrey’s novels, Dragonriders of Pern (1987) is an odd duck. It tries to blend diplomacy, strategy, and a dash of action into one package. You don’t ju...

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...