abandonware games sorted by popularity

Think of Aldo's Assault as what happens when Mario forgets his plumber license and joins a bootleg army. This 1991 DOS gem throws you into a side-scrolling frenzy of ladders, barre...

Dark Side (1988) is a first-person sci-fi adventure set on a moon orbiting a planet that’s about to be destroyed. No pressure. The gameplay combines exploration with puzzle-s...

Guerrilla War wastes no time pretending to be subtle. You run upward, you shoot everything that moves, and occasionally you rescue a hostage who seems oddly calm about the whole si...

A remake of the arcade classic, CHAMP Asteroids lets you relive the joy of spinning wildly in space and smashing rocks with a tiny triangle-shaped ship. It’s like cosmic road...

More illustrations, more intrigue, more doom. The Crystal of Doom continues the hybrid of comic-style storytelling and light role-playing with just enough choices to make you feel ...

Dungeons of Kroz 2 didn’t reinvent the wheel—it sharpened it and rolled it over your face. Released the same year as the original, it’s tougher, faster, and even ...

In this 1992 platformer, you control a small, shaggy blue demon navigating a dungeon filled with enemies. Jump, dodge, and collect items as you progress through levels. It's like p...

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...

D-Zone is what you’d get if someone blended city-building with military strategy and sprinkled in a dash of chaos. You’re tasked with running a base while fending off a...

Silicon Dreams by Level 9 Computing is a trilogy of interactive fiction (text adventure) games released in the mid-1980s. The trilogy includes three separate games: Snowball, Retur...

XQuest offers a blend of action and exploration, creating a gameplay loop that feels both dynamic and rewarding. It encourages players to experiment, try different approaches, and ...

The 11th Hour is what happens when a puzzle game decides it also wants to haunt your dreams. As the sequel to The 7th Guest, it doubles down on eerie atmosphere, cryptic challenges...

Archery (1985) is what happens when someone says, “Hey, what if we made a bow-and-arrow game with the graphical fidelity of a cave painting?” You shoot arrows. That&rsq...

It’s 1990, and you’re sitting at your DOS PC playing Accordion, a game that somehow turns solitaire into something slower and more passive-aggressive. It’s not fl...

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...

Crime City is an isometric action game that throws you into the role of a lone enforcer cleaning up the streets. Armed with a trusty weapon and a questionable sense of self-preserv...

Dangerous Streets is a fighting game that clearly wanted to be the next Street Fighter—and instead became a cult oddity. The character roster is bizarre, the animations oddly...

Arnie 2 is the unofficial Schwarzenegger sim where you run around shirtless with guns bigger than your torso, blowing up helicopters, bunkers, and bad guys in increasingly ridiculo...