abandonware games sorted by popularity

In this 1986 DOS game, you're piloting a spacecraft in the year 2123, defending the United Planets from the Andromedan Hegemony. It's like being the captain of a starship, but with...

EGA Bomb is a small, colorful arcade-style game that knows exactly what it is: fast, simple, and slightly mischievous. Built around classic bomb-dropping mechanics, it challenges p...

Welcome to the skies of World War II, where dogfights are fast, fuel is low, and you probably forgot to raise your landing gear. Battlehawks 1942 (1988) is a flight sim with just e...

Take Down lets you relive the golden era of SWAT fantasies—when every problem could be solved with tactical entry and a well-placed flashbang. As leader of an elite anti-terr...

Imagine Tetris went on a sugar binge and had an identity crisis. That’s Zyconix (1992, DOS) in a nutshell. It’s a tile-matching puzzle game where nothing quite behaves ...

Monopoly brings the classic board game of property, rent, and increasingly strained family relationships to the computer. Players buy streets, build houses, negotiate trades, and a...

7 Colors is one of those puzzle games that sounds simple on paper but ends up consuming your entire afternoon before you even realize it. Released in 1991 for DOS, it throws you in...

Utopia: The Creation of a Nation challenges you to build and manage a society, which sounds noble until everything starts going wrong at once. Released in 1992, it blends simulatio...

Building upon the original formula, Kingdom of Kroz 2 introduces fresh levels, new challenges, and even more opportunities to question every decision you make. Exploration remains ...

Also known as The Crypt, Castle Master 2 is like the goth sibling of the first game—darker, moodier, and with more corpses lying around. The gameplay’s pretty much the ...

Galleons of Glory invites players to sail the high seas in search of fame, fortune, and possibly a few cannonballs heading directly toward their ship. Naval combat games from this ...

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....

Before Football Manager consumed the souls of soccer nerds everywhere, there was Club Football: The Manager. It’s all spreadsheets, transfers, and managing egos with egos. Th...

With a title that sounds like a deep-sea motivational poster, Big Sea: The Better One Will Win is a maritime strategy game where the stakes are high and the water’s pixelated...

Despite the ominous title, Caverns of Chaos (1992) plays like the lovechild of rogue-like masochism and old-school dungeon crawling. There’s loot, traps, monsters, and more w...

Dominium (1992) is an ambitious mix of real-time strategy and empire management, though perhaps “ambitious” is just another word for “slightly overwhelming.&rdquo...

Imagine a game where a gelatinous green creature (that may or may not be sentient chewing gum) bounces its way through logic puzzles and physics that occasionally remember gravity ...

Beach volleyball rarely received much attention in classic gaming, making Kings of the Beach a refreshing surprise. Fast-paced matches combine accessible controls with enough tacti...

Adventure enthusiasts received a real treasure with the Magnetic Scrolls Collection, bringing together several legendary text adventures celebrated for their witty writing and chal...

Ultimate Body Blows is a fighting game that boldly enters a genre dominated by arcade giants and says, “We can do this on a PC keyboard.” Inspired heavily by Street Fig...

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...