abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

Global Conquest is strategy boiled down to its essentials, offering a streamlined take on world domination that’s easy to pick up but harder to master. You’ll move armi...

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...

Step into the Korean War with Conflict: Korea, where you command UN forces and discover that even in strategy games, North Korea is a problem. It follows the same system as the res...

_Jetset_, released in 1982, belongs to the pioneering era of computer gaming when developers worked wonders with limited technology. The game combines arcade-style action with fast...

Road Runner is a video game based on the popular Looney Tunes cartoon series featuring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. The game was originally developed by Atari Games and rel...

In Power Drive, rally racing comes with an extra dose of “don’t hit the tree.” It’s all about navigating winding tracks with a sense of timing that borders ...

Back in 1984, Devastator promised arcade-style action on DOS, which is another way of saying “prepare for blocky graphics and relentless difficulty.” It’s a shoot...

If you ever wanted to command the Pacific fleet without getting wet, Carrier Strike is your game. Set during WWII, it’s a turn-based wargame where numbers, radar, and weather...

Lancelot (1988) is an action-adventure that draws loosely from Arthurian legend and very tightly from the difficulty school of “good luck.” You guide the famous knight ...

Back in 1989, David Wolf: Secret Agent tried really hard to make you feel like James Bond. You get car chases, fistfights, and enough cheesy dialogue to fill an action movie marath...

Cirque de Zale is a point-and-click adventure game released in 2004, developed by Rebecca Clements as a freeware title. Created using the Adventure Game Studio (AGS) engine, the ga...

It’s Colonel Mustard in the Study with the Lead Pipe—but on DOS. Clue Master Detective takes the classic board game and wraps it in moody music, pixelated crime scenes,...

Rastan is Conan-the-Barbarian energy distilled into a side-scrolling adventure where your primary verb is “destroy.” The DOS port lacks a bit of arcade sparkle, but the...

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 ga...

Adapting movies into games is always tricky, but Predator 2 gives it a shot with mixed results. You play as a cop cleaning up the mean streets while occasionally being stalked by t...

Based on the famously chaotic 1995 movie, Waterworld (1997, DOS) somehow manages to be more confusing than the film itself—and that’s saying something. This action-adve...

If the first game was controlled chaos, Earthworm Jim 2 is joyful anarchy. It cranks up the weirdness, throwing genre shifts and unexpected mechanics at the player with gleeful aba...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens&mdash...

Tennis Cup 2 refines its predecessor with smoother controls and a broader range of shots, making rallies feel more dynamic and less predictable. Matches demand attention and strate...

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...

Before Indiana Jones had a whip, Chagunitzu had block puzzles. Released in 1990 by Softdisk (and developed by a young John Romero), this game is a precursor to God of Thunder and p...