abandonware games sorted by popularity

Surf Ninjas is exactly the sort of licensed game that sounds like somebody combined two unrelated ideas and decided not to ask questions. Released in 1994, it is based on the film ...

Oil's Well is an action-puzzle game released by Sierra On-Line in 1983/84. It was originally made for platforms like the Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS, but was la...

Zona 0 is a top-down action game from Spain that blends cyberpunk aesthetics with frenetic gameplay and a dash of existential dread. You play a cyber-agent navigating a dystopian c...

England Championship Special (1991, DOS) is the kind of football game that doesn’t pretend to know what the Premier League will look like in 30 years—it just wants you ...

Xtrek is a multiplayer-focused space simulation that captures the spirit of cooperative and competitive gameplay long before it became mainstream. Players pilot ships, complete obj...

Before Michael Bay got his hands on the franchise, Autobots (1989, DOS) offered a more... subtle approach to transforming robot mayhem. Well, not subtle exactly — more like c...

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...

Columbus Discovery (1992, DOS) is a history-flavored point-and-click adventure where you, as a pixelated Christopher Columbus, set sail to "discover" lands that are already very mu...

Diabolika is a dark, atmospheric adventure with a taste for supernatural trouble and gloomy surroundings. The game places you in a world where strange events are normal and apparen...

Ah, Death Knights of Krynn—a 1991 RPG where you fight hordes of undead in the Dragonlance universe. SSI’s Gold Box series wasn’t known for holding your hand, and ...

Vegas Gambler brings a collection of casino favourites to the home computer, allowing players to try their luck at cards and other gambling games without having to book a flight to...

The sequel nobody expected but everyone button-mashed through. Yie Ar Kung Fu 2 adds more characters, more chaos, and less coherence. This time you’re Lee (no relation to Bru...

Jim Power: The Lost Dimension in 3D is a colorful action platformer built around fast movement, shooting, jumping, and an almost suspicious amount of danger. The player controls Ji...

Norton Desktop takes the Norton philosophy of practical system management and gives it a more graphical, desktop-like presentation. Designed for DOS, it provides an organized envir...

Antix (1985) is Snake, but with a death wish. Created by the same mad genius behind Tetris, this game takes the familiar snake-trail mechanic and cranks it to eleven. You’ve ...

If you’ve ever wondered what Bill Gates was doing before becoming a household name, Donkey BAS holds the answer: programming a game about avoiding pixelated donkeys on a high...

Rescue Rover is a 1991 DOS puzzle adventure from id Software that combines colorful presentation with clever environmental challenges. Players control a small rover navigating haza...

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-...

Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace combines Dungeons & Dragons role-playing with space exploration, producing one of the stranger but more memorable fantasy hybrids of the early 19...

Empire Soccer 94 is football stripped of glamour and presented with a straight face that makes everything unintentionally funny. There are no licenses, no famous players, and no at...

Joan of Arc places players in the role of the legendary French heroine during one of history's most turbulent conflicts. Released in 1989, this strategy game blends military planni...

The Usurper is a fantasy action game built around the classic computer-game recipe of dangerous dungeons, hostile creatures and a hero who apparently has nothing better to do than ...

Midway Campaign recreates the famous naval conflict of the Pacific War through a strategy-focused experience that challenges players to manage forces, plan movements, and make diff...

NFL Football is a 1992 American football game that puts players in charge of teams, plays, and the kind of strategic decisions that can make a coach look like a genius one minute a...

Welcome to Tass Times in Tonetown, where the ‘80s collided with science fiction and nobody cleaned up the mess. It’s a bizarre adventure full of punk hairdos, neon colo...

TV Sports Baseball from 1991 tries to bottle the magic of America’s pastime and pour it into your DOS machine, complete with commentary and a surprising amount of personality. Th...

Ikari Warriors 2: Victory Road in 1988 continued the tradition of heroic soldiers storming impossible odds while carrying enough ammunition to challenge basic physics. This sequel ...

Hi-Octane is exactly what the title suggests, a fast-paced racing experience that prioritizes speed and chaos over realism. The vehicles feel more like futuristic experiments than ...

Crazy Nick’s Roger Wilco’s Spaced Out Games Pack hands the Space Quest janitor a stack of silly mini-games to keep him from accidentally saving the galaxy again. Expect...

Arachne is a graphical web browser for DOS. Arachne was developed by Michal Polák and released in the early 1990s as a text-mode web browser with limited graphical capabilit...