abandonware games sorted by popularity

Joan of Arc places players in the role of the legendary French heroine during one of history's most turbulent conflicts. Released in 1989, this strategy game blends military planni...

Follow the Reader (1992, DOS) is an educational oddity that feels like a kindly librarian discovered the power of DOS and decided to make literacy a competitive sport. You guide wo...

Pit Fighter is an arcade-style fighting game that was originally released in arcades in 1990 by Atari Games. It was later ported to various home gaming platforms, including DOS, th...

An expansion to the original, Cossacks: The Art of War refines, expands, and generally cranks up the chaos. New units, new campaigns, and more ways to accidentally bankrupt your na...

If your idea of high-octane excitement involves wind direction, tacking angles, and sail trim, then American Challenge: A Sailing Simulation is your digital paradise. This 1986 DOS...

Hocus Pocus is the kind of platformer that seems to run on pure sugar and cheerful chaos. You play as a young wizard with more enthusiasm than common sense, bouncing through colorf...

Car Builder is less about speed and more about spreadsheets—just with axles. In this 1982 gem, you don’t race cars, you design them. From gear ratios to weight distribu...

Klax takes the familiar tile-matching concept and adds speed, pressure, and just enough chaos to keep players constantly on edge. Colored tiles race toward the bottom of the screen...

Ken's Labyrinth throws players into twisting mazes packed with monsters, hidden rooms, colorful textures, and enough secret passages to keep even the most determined explorer suspi...

Arcade Pool (1994) is like playing a game of billiards in your best friend’s basement—if your best friend happened to be a DOS machine with a serious competitive streak...

The Simpsons: Bart’s House of Weirdness is what happens when a platform game decides to take a holiday inside a surreal cartoon fever dream. You control Bart through two wild...

Released in 1994 for DOS, Iron Cross is a historical strategy game that tries very hard to make military planning look sexy. Spoiler: it doesn’t. You’re dealing with Wo...

Infestation drops you onto a hostile alien world where the welcome committee consists mostly of things with too many legs and way too many teeth. The game mixes exploration and act...

Street Sports Soccer (1988, DOS) trades professional pitches for empty lots, with goalposts made of bricks and wild kids chasing glory. It’s messy, fast, and surprisingly end...

Family Feud from 1987 turns the popular TV show into a surprisingly tense DOS experience, proving that guessing what other people think is harder than it looks. The core idea is si...

Beyond Divinity is an action RPG developed by Larian Studios and released in 2004 as the direct sequel to Divine Divinity. It builds on its predecessor’s isometric, real-time...

Shawl (1986, DOS) is a lesser-known title that carries the unmistakable spirit of mid-80s experimentation. With simple graphics and straightforward mechanics, it focuses on tight g...

Terminal Velocity is all about speed, freedom, and blowing things up while flying at ridiculous velocities. The open environments give a sense of scale rarely seen at the time, and...

X-COM: Alliance is one of those legendary “what could have been” titles, a fascinating ghost in gaming history rather than a fully realized experience. Originally envisioned as...