abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1983, this is your grandpa’s Battleship—minus the plastic pegs, but with all the tension of blind naval warfare. There are no fancy graphics, no Hollywood e...

Hocus Pocus is the kind of platformer that seems to run on pure sugar and cheerful chaos. You play as a young wizard with more enthusiasm than common sense, bouncing through colorf...

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 ...

Black Friday (1983) isn’t about shopping mayhem—though you might wish it were after trying to figure out what’s going on. This early DOS title is part stock marke...

Sink or Swim is basically what happens when someone asks, “What if we turned a rescue operation into a slapstick puzzle show?” You guide lifeboat-juggling hero S.S. Dav...

Operation Bodycount sounds subtle, doesn’t it? Released in 1994, this shooter wastes no time letting you know exactly what it’s about: running around and, well, increas...

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...

There’s something oddly hypnotic about Gapper, a game that feels like it was assembled during a coffee-fueled night by someone who really liked simple mechanics and didn&rsqu...

Interphase from 1989 blends action and puzzle-solving into a futuristic arcade experience that feels distinctly experimental. Players navigate abstract environments, collecting obj...

Educational games often struggle to balance learning with entertainment, but Mario is Missing! takes an unusual approach by sending Luigi around the world to rescue his famous brot...

X-COM: Apocalypse takes the familiar alien invasion formula and tosses it into a sprawling futuristic city, where things feel both more chaotic and oddly more personal. Instead of ...

Face Off! (1989) wastes no time telling you exactly what it wants to be: fast, noisy, and slightly unhinged. This DOS arcade sports game throws subtlety out of the window and repla...

Often overlooked, Falcon AT from 1988 is an interesting hybrid that tries to bridge hardcore simulation with a slightly more accessible presentation. While it still respects the se...

Hard Drivin' 2 takes everything its predecessor attempted and pushes it a little further, like a sequel that insists it has matured but still enjoys causing vehicular embarrassment...

Before Virtua Tennis, there was this: 4D Sports Tennis, where physics and pixels politely shake hands and then forget why they were introduced. Released in 1990 for DOS, this game ...

D-Fend Reloaded it's one of the most user-friendly front ends for the popular DOS-BOX emulator. The installer download includes the latest versione of DOS-BOX and is available for ...

Released in 1994, _Jetstrike_ mixes action, strategy, and flight combat into a surprisingly ambitious package. Players take command of military aircraft and tackle missions that in...

Kangaroo transforms a determined mother kangaroo into one of gaming's most energetic heroes as she hops through colorful stages to rescue her kidnapped joey. Along the way she punc...

Hard Hat Mack is the kind of game that proves construction work can be more dangerous in pixels than in real life, provided real life had ladders that seem determined to betray you...

Onslaught (1990, DOS) takes the classic top-down shoot-and-survive formula and injects it with an enthusiasm that borders on reckless. Hordes of enemies sprint at you like they&rsq...

What happens when a basketball game forgets about realism and goes full cartoon? Basket Master (1990), that’s what. This Spanish-developed DOS gem pits two oddly animated bal...

Humans 3: Evolution - Lost in Time takes the familiar formula of guiding small, vulnerable characters and adds a time-travel twist. Released in 1995, it challenges you to manage gr...

When Die Hard 2: Die Harder hit DOS in 1992, it decided the airport setting meant “time for an on-rails shooter.” Picture John McClane glued to a track, blasting bad gu...