abandonware games sorted by popularity

With Zork Zero, Infocom decided to throw everything into the cauldron: graphics, mouse support, and a jester who won’t shut up. A prequel to the original trilogy, it’s ...

Douglas Adams, the twisted genius behind Hitchhiker’s Guide, brings you the most terrifying adventure of all: paperwork. Bureaucracy turns mundane modern life into a text-bas...

The Third Courier is an abandoned (atypical) adventure / role playing game set in Berlin during the cold war era and, of course, it's a spy game. The Third Courier was developed by...

Kroz returns, and with it, your CRT monitor’s worst nightmare: ASCII graphics! Return to Kroz takes you back to a time when @ meant “you,” and everything else was...

Gnome Ranger is an abandoned fantasy adventure game, developed and published by Level 9 Computing in 1987 for DOS. Gnome Ranger was designed by Peter Austin who also designed the s...

Before realistic fighting games, there was Boxer Rebellion—a 1982 title so primitive, it makes Pong look flashy. It’s boxing with fewer rules and more pixels per punch....

No, not that Battlestar. Battlestar (1996) is more obscure than a reboot that never happened. Set in deep space with a top-down view and UI only a Windows 3.x user could love, it m...

Part interactive thriller, part newsroom simulator, The President is Missing (1988, DOS) casts you as an investigative journalist trying to unravel a political conspiracy before ev...

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...

Released in 1988, Decisive Battles of the American Civil War: Vol. 1 is as straightforward as its title. You get historical accuracy, a serious strategy engine, and about as many g...

Ready to get your heart racing with the world’s slowest competitive sport? Bicycle Bridge brings the thrill of bidding, trick-taking, and utter confusion straight to your DOS...

War never changes—but it does get oddly cute in Cannon Fodder. Guide your tiny commandos through missions filled with explosions, carnage, and dark humor. The game mixes arca...

Boulder Dash Construction Kit is both a full game and a level editor, built around the gameplay mechanics of the original Boulder Dash (1984). You still play as Rockford, the pixel...

NetWars, developed by Novell, is a 3D space shooter video game originally released in 1993 for DOS. NetWars was designed primarily as a promotional tool to demonstrate the networki...

The first Ishar (1992, DOS) introduced players to a fantasy world where every decision could backfire spectacularly. You’re tasked with toppling a tyrant, but first you&rsquo...