abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1990, Dawn Raider is one of those obscure DOS shooters that probably spent more time in floppy disk boxes than in actual computers. It’s a vertical shoot-’e...

Sonic Millennium Edition is a fan-oriented Sonic project that brings the famous blue hedgehog into a PC setting with a distinctly retro spirit. The game focuses on the familiar ing...

In Black Gold (1989), you're in the cutthroat world of oil barons. It’s like Dallas, but with more charts and fewer cowboy hats. You build rigs, negotiate deals, and try to o...

Wizard's Crown is a classic fantasy role-playing game that gives players a party of adventurers, a dangerous world, and a generous supply of reasons to regret entering the nearest ...

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'...

Stellar Trader is a space trading simulation that puts the player behind the controls of a starship and asks a deceptively simple question: can you make money without getting yours...

Operation Europe: Path to Victory 1939-45 is a 1994 strategy game that covers the enormous scope of the Second World War and somehow expects the player to make sense of it all. The...

Mortal Kombat 2 takes the original formula and turns the intensity up several notches with more fighters, new arenas, additional special moves, and an even greater supply of specta...

Star Saga: One - Beyond the Boundary is a 1987 science-fiction role-playing adventure that sends players beyond familiar territory and into a large galaxy filled with planets, char...

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....

Released in 1983, Moon Patrol is the game that proved moon driving is a terrible career choice. You control a buggy with a suspension system that would make NASA jealous, jumping o...

Isle of the Dead is a first-person horror shooter that combines exploration, combat, and a wonderfully grim island setting. You find yourself surrounded by hostile creatures and my...

Ford Simulator 3 (1992, DOS) pushes the formula further, polishing visuals and adding enough variety to feel like a modest evolution rather than a simple update. The driving segmen...

Released in 1984 for DOS, Felony! is a strange and ambitious early action game that puts you in the role of a criminal on the run. Instead of focusing on a single mechanic, it thro...

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where leather vests are apparently immune to radiation, Bad Blood lets you wander the wasteland deciding whether to be a brute, a brainiac, or a mut...

Tank controls + polar bears + Cold War vibes = Arctic Fox. In this early vehicular combat sim, you're piloting a futuristic snow tank across an icy wasteland to stop some aliens or...

In Ancients 1: Deathwatch, you gather your pixelated party and set off to cleanse a city of evil, or at least try not to get mugged by slimes. It's a dungeon crawler in classic DOS...

If Krazy Ivan (1996, Windows XP) had a motto, it’d be “Blow it up first, ask later.” You pilot a massive mech across post-apocalyptic battlefields, obliterating a...

Vaxine is a first-person shooter with a wonderfully strange premise: you are flying through the interior of a human body, blasting viruses and other microscopic nasties before they...

Set in the far-off future of 1992, Battle Chess 4000 brings space-age flair to intergalactic checkmate. Now your queen is a laser-wielding dominatrix and your pawns might be robots...

Dive into Aquanox (2001), where post-apocalyptic submarines battle it out beneath the ocean in a world that’s half Waterworld, half neon rave. With moody lighting and dialogu...

Exile: Escape from the Pit, released in 1995, is where the whole strange, subterranean saga begins. You’re exiled—literally—thrown into an underground world and t...

In Battle Master (1991), you play as a heavily armored murder-hobo leading an army across a fantasy world that really doesn’t want you there. It’s part action-RPG, part...

Mychess offers a straightforward but challenging digital chess experience for players who want to test their strategic thinking against a computer opponent. The rules are familiar,...

Trinity is one of Infocom's more unusual interactive fiction adventures, mixing fantasy, science fiction, surreal imagery, and a healthy dose of philosophical weirdness. You begin ...

Acquire (1989, DOS) brings boardroom drama to your DOS screen, turning you into a hotel tycoon in a game where the real enemy is... math. It's a faithful adaptation of the classic ...

This 1996 point-and-click western is what you’d get if Lucky Luke and Monkey Island had an awkward but lovable baby. 3 Skulls of the Toltecs throws you into a spaghetti weste...

Saddle up for an awkward mix of minigames that vaguely resemble rodeo events. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show tries to recreate the excitement of a 19th-century traveling circus but ...

Released in 1993, Eye of the Storm is an action-oriented game that embraces speed and spectacle. You’re thrust into fast-paced scenarios where reflexes matter more than long-...

Starglider 2 takes the original's flying and shooting formula and expands it into a much larger science-fiction playground. Released in 1989, it gives players a futuristic craft ca...