abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1990 for DOS, Soviet is a cold war thriller that plays out like an interactive spy novel. You’re an American journalist turned reluctant agent, caught in a tangle...

18th Airborne is what happens when a military recruitment pamphlet and a tactical shooter have a baby. You’re thrown into the boots of a paratrooper with a mission, a gun, an...

Colosso Secret (1997, DOS) is the moody prequel/sequel/parallel universe to Colosso Revenge, where secrets abound and subtlety is tossed out the window. Imagine Indiana Jones in a ...

Sci-Mutant Priestess (1989) is French, weird, and proud of it. You play as a rebellious mutant in a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi world ruled by bio-psychic cults. Obviously. It’s...

In this 1989 DOS game, you survive in a post-apocalyptic world where demons have taken over. Scavenge for resources, fight off demonic creatures, and try to rebuild civilization. I...

Astro Dodge (1982) is basically Frogger — in space. You control a tiny spacecraft tasked with dodging endless waves of meteors, space debris, and possibly your own questionab...

Sierra Championship Boxing is an abandoned sports boxing game, developed by Evryware and released by Sierra On-Line in 1985. You can issue instructions to the boxer between rounds,...

Come one, come all, to the saddest circus ever pixelated. In Ballyhoo, you're stuck in a depressing carnival trying to solve a kidnapping while dealing with clowns, carnies, and th...

What if Leisure Suit Larry and Monkey Island had a love child in outer space, raised by gender-swapped aliens? You’d get Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender-Bender, a hilarious...

Blood Money (1990) answers the question: what if every level in a shoot-'em-up was a different kind of sci-fi fever dream? You fly through alien-infested caverns, collect cash, and...

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...

England Championship Special (1991, DOS) is the kind of football game that doesn’t pretend to know what the Premier League will look like in 30 years—it just wants you ...

Dragon World (1984) might sound like the precursor to a sprawling epic RPG, but it’s actually more of a board-game-style fantasy experience. Less “slay the dragon with ...

Post-apocalyptic survival meets real estate management in Burntime, where the world is ruined, but you still need to hire employees and secure water rights. It’s like Mad Max...

Borrowed Time is a graphic adventure video game developed and published by Interplay Productions. It was released in 1985 for various platforms, including the Apple Macintosh,...

Manic Miner is a quintessential platformer game that emerged in the early 1980s, developed by Matthew Smith for the ZX Spectrum. It stands as a hallmark of the 8-bit gaming era, ce...

Trying to describe Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1991) as a “normal” game is impossible—because nothing about it is normal. It’s a fever dream in pixe...

Football Glory (1995, DOS) approaches the beautiful game with a playful smirk and a willingness to bend reality for entertainment’s sake. The players move with exaggerated fl...

F40 Pursuit Simulator takes a different approach by putting you in the cockpit of a fictional high-tech interceptor designed for one job: catching bad guys. Instead of large-scale ...

Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom shifts the setting to a more exotic environment, adding variety to the familiar formula. Released in 1992, it introduces new challenges, new puzzles, and a s...

The Wizard's Castle is a classic text-based, dungeon-crawling adventure game released in 1980, designed by Joseph R. Power. The game was originally developed for the Exidy Sorcerer...

Evolution is an early experiment in simulating progress, and it wears its ambition proudly. The game attempts to model development and change over time, often in abstract ways that...