abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

Infocom really went off the rails with Nord and Bert, and bless them for it. This is a text adventure not about dragons or spaceships, but about puns. Yes, literal wordplay puzzles...

Deadly Racer is basically what happens when someone at the office said, “What if racing, but everyone might die?” Released in 1994 for DOS, it’s a fast-paced, rou...

Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (1992) is what happens when a simple beat-’em-up decides to go globetrotting. Instead of just brawling through alleys, Billy and Jimmy trav...

If Shakespeare wrote video games and then decided, “You know what this needs? A parser and some pixelated drama,” you'd get Avon. In this interactive fiction gem from 1...

If you’ve ever wondered what the world of finance might look like as a video game—minus the existential dread—Inside Trader has you covered. This quirky DOS title...

In Black Crown (1995), you play as a prince with a very punchable name, trying to reclaim his rightful throne by solving puzzles and dying a lot. It's one of those DOS-era games wh...

This one's not for the faint of heart. Conflict in Vietnam tries to simulate the complexity and chaos of guerrilla warfare in a game where every click can cost lives. The graphics ...

If Star Trek Combat Arena had a motto, it would be “talk diplomacy later.” Released in 1989 for DOS, this game tossed Starfleet’s peaceful ideals right out the ai...

Released in 1988, Dracula in London was part strategy, part board game, and all atmosphere. You weren’t just staking vampires; you were managing resources, characters, and ti...

Dizzy the egg is back, and this time he’s underwater and floating up on bubbles because... sure, why not? Bubble Dizzy is a mix of patience, timing, and yelling “WHY DI...

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...

This game is either a delightful brain teaser or a slow descent into madness, depending on how patient you are. 15x15 Picture Puzzle gives you a scrambled mess of tiny square tiles...

Before Command & Conquer, there was Command HQ (1990, DOS/Mac)—an early RTS that said “what if we made World War III playable?” It’s global domination m...

As a prisoner of war, you must find a way to escape a prison in Germany in 1942. The prisoner has a daily routine which will follow if not controlled by the player for a certain am...