abandonware games sorted by popularity

Independence War 2: Edge Of Chaos refines its predecessor’s ideas into a more open-ended and player-driven experience. Trading, piracy, and exploration play a much larger rol...

No relation to Dune (except for being a total rip-off), Arrakis is a homebrew strategy game that feels like a tribute to the sandiest planet in sci-fi. You mine spice, fight vaguel...

Forbidden Quest (1983, DOS) belongs to that early era when imagination did most of the heavy lifting. Sparse visuals and text-driven cues invite you to picture grand dangers lurkin...

Trade in your sword and crown for a dice cup in King Graham’s Board Game Challenge. The noble hero of King’s Quest takes a break from slaying dragons to play board game...

In Sito Pons 500cc Grand Prix, you’re tossed straight onto the track with the grace of a rookie who definitely didn’t read the manual. The game tries hard to recreate t...

Few titles make a promise quite like Gamma Force in Pit of a Thousand Screams. You already know this won’t be a relaxing stroll through a meadow. Instead, it’s an energ...

Dangerous Dave: Risky Rescue puts Dave back in hero mode, diving into a dangerous compound to rescue his brother. Expect tight platforming, unpredictable enemy patterns, and traps ...

Paganitzu is a classic puzzle-adventure game released in 1991 by Apogee Software. Set in an ancient pyramid, the game follows the exploits of its protagonist, Alabama Smith, who mu...

In 1986, Dragonfly emerged as one of those simple but strangely addictive action games. Picture a cross between a shooter and an abstract insect simulator. The graphics are blocky,...

Combat Chess (1997, Windows XP) takes the cerebral game of kings and adds swords, screams, and shameless violence. Every piece battle-animates into Mortal Kombat-lite fights when y...

Welcome to Aspetra, a 1996 DOS game that tried to cram an epic sci-fi RPG into your beige box PC — and mostly succeeded! Think “Star Trek meets budget constraints.&rdqu...

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...

In this 1987 DOS game, you delve into a dungeon filled with traps and monsters. Solve puzzles, defeat enemies, and uncover the secrets of the forge. It's like playing Dungeons &...

James Clavell's Shogun, a text adventure game developed by Infocom and released in 1989. Infocom was known for its interactive fiction games, and "James Clavell's Shogun" was one o...

Released in 1991, Free D.C.! is one of those games that feels like a time capsule of early PC experimentation. It mixes political satire with arcade-style action, letting you fight...

In Diggers 2: Extractors, released in 1995, the digging franchise doubled down on strategy while adding a dash of science fiction flair. This time, your miners aren’t just bu...

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...