abandonware games sorted by popularity

Super ZZT expands the classic ZZT concept into a larger adventure and creation toolkit, giving players worlds to explore as well as tools with which to build their own. The game co...

Beast is ASCII horror at its most gloriously minimal. You’re a brave soul (well, a smiley face) trapped in a dungeon with sentient blobs (the titular beasts) that want you ve...

Fast, colorful, and gloriously over-the-top, Major Stryker delivers classic vertical scrolling shooter action with enough explosions to satisfy even the most demanding arcade pilot...

Nerm of Bemer is a 1984 DOS game whose wonderfully mysterious title immediately suggests that the player is about to encounter something unusual. The game belongs to the experiment...

Bomb Run (1991, DOS) sounds like an action-packed thriller—and then you play it and realize you’re just trying to drop bombs in the right spots while flying what feels ...

Murder Club is a mystery adventure that places players in the middle of a complicated investigation filled with suspects, clues, and enough suspicious behavior to make trusting any...

Gunboat trades fighter jets for naval tension, placing you in command of a small but heavily armed vessel navigating hostile waters. The gameplay mixes simulation detail with actio...

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...

V for Victory: Velikiye Luki brings the series' turn-based military simulation to the Eastern Front, recreating the brutal fighting around Velikiye Luki during the Second World War...

Powermonger takes the god-game formula of Populous and gives it teeth. Instead of playing benevolent deity, you’re more like a slightly cranky warlord, sending little soldier...

NetStorm: Islands at War is a 1997 real-time strategy game with a wonderfully unusual setting: floating islands suspended in the sky, where rival factions wage war using buildings,...

Released in 2005, Lincity NG modernizes the classic city-building formula by placing equal emphasis on economic growth, environmental responsibility, and long-term sustainability. ...

Rags to Riches is a 1993 DOS business simulation built around the classic dream of starting with almost nothing and ending up with a fortune. Players must make financial decisions,...

Welcome to Border Zone (1987, DOS), where the Cold War is hot and your only weapon is your brain (and maybe a good map). This text-based espionage thriller from Infocom combines sp...

Wizard of Wor 98 revisits the classic maze-shooter concept and gives it a late-1990s computer makeover. Players move through labyrinthine arenas while hunting monsters, dodging att...

Remember when being radical meant wearing neon shorts and dodging killer squirrels on a skateboard? No? Well, Awesome Earl in SkateRock is here to educate you. Released in 1988, th...

Pharaoh's Tomb is a 1990 platform adventure that combines exploration, traps, and puzzle-solving in a classic archaeological setting. Players guide the hero through ancient tombs f...

Oubliette is a 1983 role-playing game and an important early example of the dungeon-crawling tradition that would influence generations of computer RPGs. Players create characters,...

Round 42 is a 1986 DOS game that offers a compact arcade-style experience built around quick decisions, movement, and increasingly demanding challenges. Its design reflects the str...

Escape from Delirium feels like someone took a pulp adventure novel, dipped it in a bucket of chaos, and fed it to a DOS system. You wake up with amnesia (because of course you do)...

Deskmate is a software suite developed by Tandy Corporation that provided a graphical user interface (GUI) and a set of applications for personal computers. It was often bundled wi...

Beats of Rage is what happens when fans of Streets of Rage decide to stop waiting for Sega and just build their own game—with a side of King of Fighters for flavor. This DOS ...

Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace combines Dungeons & Dragons role-playing with space exploration, producing one of the stranger but more memorable fantasy hybrids of the early 19...

Antix (1985) is Snake, but with a death wish. Created by the same mad genius behind Tetris, this game takes the familiar snake-trail mechanic and cranks it to eleven. You’ve ...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens&mdash...

Imagine a game where minesweeper meets viral chaos—Chain Reaction (1996) isn’t quite that, but it is a fast-paced puzzle-action hybrid where things blow up in neat litt...

With a name like Moonshine Racers (1991), you already know this isn’t about safe driving. You’re an outlaw hauling contraband, racing through rural landscapes while dod...

Sirwood throws you into a fantasy kingdom where the trees are friendlier than some of the locals. Half strategy, half adventure, it's the kind of game that expects you to think, pl...

The Wizard of Oz brings the familiar world of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion to the computer in an adventure inspired by the classic story. Players travel throug...

Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 throws you into a gloriously over-the-top sci-fi world where guns, swords, aliens and scantily clad warriors somehow make perfect sense. You play as Julie, ...