abandonware games sorted by popularity

The Last Mission is a compact science-fiction action game in which survival depends on flying through dangerous environments, destroying hostile machines, and keeping your spacecra...

In 1990, strategy games were still figuring out how serious they wanted to be, and Frontline sits comfortably in that experimental phase. This DOS title drops players into a tactic...

Renegade Legion Interceptor is a 1990 DOS space combat simulation set in the futuristic Renegade Legion universe. Players pilot an advanced spacecraft through dangerous missions, m...

Arnhem is the kind of wargame where you spend more time reading hex maps than shooting anything. It’s all about recreating Operation Market Garden — you know, that WWII...

Classic Concentration brings the Alex Trebek game show to DOS, complete with low-res puzzles and that addictive memory card-flipping mechanic. Match two elephants, and boom—y...

Super Speed is a straightforward racing game built around one very important concept: going fast. Players take control of racing cars, compete on circuits, and attempt to finish ah...

Sounds ominous, right? In Choose an Enemy, you’re given exactly that: a list of foes to annihilate in turn-based combat. It’s like a dinner menu, but instead of appetiz...

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...

Atic Atac remake revisits the classic Spectrum-era action adventure with updated presentation while retaining the basic spirit of exploration, combat and treasure hunting. The orig...

The sequel to Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch, Return to Ringworld throws you back into Larry Niven’s vast sci-fi universe—except this time, the puzzles are tougher...

If classic fantasy ever needed a designated clown, Eric the Unready would proudly volunteer. This 1993 adventure from Legend Entertainment gleefully demolishes every heroic trope i...

Blade Warrior (1991) is a side-scrolling beat 'em up that looks like it was illustrated entirely in heavy metal album covers. You’re a silhouette of rage, cutting through dem...

Cannon Fodder 2 continues the gleefully irreverent military mayhem of its predecessor, sending tiny soldiers into missions where survival is never guaranteed and common sense is ap...

Space Ace 2: Borf’s Revenge (1991, DOS) doubles down on everything that made the first one iconic — and maddening. Borf is back, still blue, still obnoxious, and once a...

Industrial machinery might not sound thrilling, yet Magnetic Crane transforms operating a giant crane into a surprisingly engaging puzzle experience. Your task is to move cargo eff...

Orbiter is a 1986 space simulation that gives players the opportunity to experience the challenges of operating a spacecraft in orbit. The game focuses on navigation, maneuvering, ...

FlixMix feels like someone took a film editor’s desk, scattered it across a computer screen, and invited you to tidy up at speed. The premise is deceptively simple: assemble ...

Ocean Ranger is a 1988 simulation that places the player in command of an offshore oil platform, which sounds like a perfectly calm occupation until you remember that the ocean, ma...

Microsoft COBOL is a classic programming environment for one of computing's most enduring business languages. COBOL was designed with practical data processing in mind, and Microso...

Tracon for Windows brings the air traffic control simulation into the Windows environment, preserving the central challenge of coordinating aircraft while presenting the experience...

Where Time Stood Still is an adventure set in a strange, dangerous land where getting lost is considerably easier than finding the exit. You guide a small group of characters throu...

Subwar 2050 takes submarine warfare into a futuristic setting, replacing conventional naval combat with sleek vessels, hostile waters, and enough advanced technology to make a peri...

TheDraw 4 is a classic DOS text and ASCII-art editor, built for users who wanted their otherwise boring command-line screens to have a little personality. It provides tools for cre...

You probably didn’t know you needed a game about a rapping, music-spinning dragon, but DJ Puff fills that oddly specific void. Released in 1993 for DOS, this platformer featu...

Strife from 1996 is a first-person shooter game developed by Rogue Entertainment and published by Velocity, based on the Doom engine. It's often remembered for being one of the ear...

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...

Darkstone tried to ride the Diablo wave in 1999, and honestly, it didn’t do a bad job. With 3D graphics (impressive for the time) and a soundtrack that takes itself way too s...

Tongue of the Fatman is one of those games that seems to have escaped from a particularly strange corner of an arcade designer's imagination. It is a fighting game, but instead of ...

PC*Bert is a 1997 DOS puzzle game that clearly takes inspiration from classic arcade ideas while adding its own personality. Players guide a character through challenging levels fi...

Strategy fans with a taste for sci-fi and logistics will find something special in Full Metal Planete. Released in 1990 for DOS and Mac, the game is essentially a futuristic board ...