abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

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...

Step aside, arcade action—B-24 Combat Simulator (1987) is here to test your patience, eyesight, and possibly your sanity. It’s all about realism, baby. You’ll tak...

Released in 1988, Serve & Volley transformed tennis into a surprisingly entertaining digital pastime. It captured the excitement of the sport without requiring players to understan...

In Bunny Bricks, you play as a rabbit in sunglasses who decides that breaking bricks with a paddle and ball is the most logical response to a kidnapped pet. It's Arkanoid meets Sat...

Lords of Doom, released in 1990, wears its dark fantasy influences proudly and with very little restraint. Everything about the game feels intense, from the name to the atmosphere,...

Released in 1984 for DOS, Farenheit 451 is one of those early adventure games that feels like it’s constantly judging your typing skills. Loosely inspired by Bradbury’s...

Dive Bomber (1989) is a game that delivers exactly what it promises: you dive, you bomb, and you try not to crash into the ground in the process. The graphics are about as simple a...

This 1989 DOS game has you hunting down demons in a dark, pixelated world. Equip yourself with weapons, explore eerie environments, and face off against otherworldly creatures. It'...

Step into the gray, morally ambiguous world of corporate domination with Big Business. It’s Monopoly with fewer dice and more spreadsheets. Crush your competitors, manipulate...

Few games from 1994 dared to ask the real question: “What if you gave an axe to someone with absolutely no training and dropped them into a dungeon with the reflexes of a slo...

Megafortress places players inside the cockpit of a sophisticated B-52 bomber, combining realistic flight simulation with large-scale military operations. Navigation, fuel manageme...

In ACE 2 (1987, DOS), you and a buddy can engage in split-screen dogfights so slow they make real air combat look like fast-forwarded ballet. The graphics are simple, but the charm...

Starquake is a weird DOS science fiction platform game developed by Bubble Bus Software in 1988 and designed by Stephen Crow and Dave Collins. The Commodore 64 version bo...

Millennia: Altered Destinies offers a fascinating blend of space exploration, strategy, and time manipulation as players attempt to guide civilizations through an enormous galactic...

Think running an airline is easy? Airlines (1994) says “think again.” This old-school management sim hands you a failing fleet and a world map, then laughs quietly as y...

You’d think a spring break trip would be relaxing. Not when you're a magically inclined college student with a knack for attracting trouble (and bikinis). Spellcasting 301 se...

ASCII art has never been so morbid. Classic Hangman is exactly what it says on the tin: guess the word or watch your little stick figure meet a tragic end. Letters become lifelines...

This 1992 DOS version of Scrabble takes the world’s most civilized word battle and turns it into a duel between man and silicon. The AI opponent doesn’t cheat (much), b...

Finally, a game where you don’t blast aliens—you launch real people into space, with all the white-knuckled tension of 1960s NASA. Buzz Aldrin’s Race into Space i...

Released in 1990, Joe Montana Football attempts to capture the excitement of American football while making the sport accessible to computer players. Featuring the legendary quarte...

Space Quest: The Lost Chapter is a curious artifact released in 2001 by dedicated fans who decided Roger Wilco deserved one more misadventure. Essentially a remake and expansion of...