abandonware games sorted by popularity

Power Drift feels like a rollercoaster decided it wanted to be a racing game. The tracks are tilted, twisted, and occasionally seem designed by an architect who had a personal grud...

More smoke-filled backrooms than a noir film and enough slot machines to trigger déjà vu—Caesars Palace is your low-res Vegas getaway. You're given a pile of ch...

Released in 1990, Air Strike USA is what you'd get if Top Gun had a baby with a Saturday morning cartoon. You pilot a heavily armed jet through side-scrolling skies, shooting down ...

Guardians: Agents of Justice puts the player in the role of a superhero-style operative tasked with dealing with threats that are considerably less interested in obeying the law. T...

By the time Laser Squad reached DOS in 1992, its reputation as a superb tactical strategy game was already well deserved. Every mission demands thoughtful positioning, careful use ...

Welcome to Aspetra, a 1996 DOS game that tried to cram an epic sci-fi RPG into your beige box PC — and mostly succeeded! Think “Star Trek meets budget constraints.&rdqu...

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 ...

WinRisk brings the classic territory-conquest board game formula to Windows, giving players a digital battlefield where armies can be moved, territories captured, and alliances rui...

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...

Hillsfar blends role-playing elements with a variety of mini-games, creating an experience that feels both diverse and occasionally unpredictable. One moment you are navigating a c...

Tracon: Air Traffic Control Simulator takes an everyday job and turns it into a surprisingly tense computer simulation. You sit in front of a radar display and become responsible f...

Released in 1993, Lethal Tender combines platform action with a satirical storyline centered on greed, money, and determined heroes. Players jump through colorful levels while coll...

Citadel of the Black Sun is a fantasy adventure built around exploration, danger, and the ominous business of investigating a mysterious stronghold. The game places the player in a...

Troll's Tale is a charming early adventure that combines fairy-tale imagery with simple exploration and puzzle solving. The player takes on the role of a young heroine travelling t...

Released in 1987, Lords of Conquest is strategy in its most distilled, no-nonsense form. This is a game that drops you onto a map, hands you control of armies, and essentially says...

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 ...

Wolfenstein 3D: Mortal Kombat Edition combines the fast-paced first-person shooting of Wolfenstein 3D with the characters and imagery associated with Mortal Kombat, creating exactl...

Dominus (1994) is what happens when a tower defense game and an RPG get thrown into a medieval blender. You’re tasked with defending your castle from wave after wave of enemi...

Warriors of Legend is an action-oriented fantasy adventure that throws the player into a world of combat, exploration, and heroic trouble. Released in 1993, it offers the familiar ...

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...

Ikari III: The Rescue takes the military action of its predecessors and adds one crucial ingredient: punching. Released in 1990 for DOS, it shifts from run-and-gun chaos toward bea...

Postal 2 takes the outrageous premise of its predecessor and expands it into a first-person sandbox where practically every ordinary errand can become an excuse for complete chaos....

Armour-Geddon is what you get when someone combines Wargames with a midlife crisis. Set in a post-nuke world where you pilot tanks, helicopters, and laser cannons to stop a doomsda...

Don’t let the cartoony name fool you: Skullduggery: Adventures in Horror wants to unsettle you, and it’s surprisingly good at it. This early horror adventure mixes clas...

Independence War takes space combat seriously, almost stubbornly so. Instead of arcade-style dogfights, it presents a Newtonian flight model where momentum, inertia, and positionin...

Super 3-D Noah's Ark is an unusual first-person shooter that takes the familiar Wolfenstein-style formula and gives it an extremely unexpected biblical makeover. Instead of battlin...

Infiltrator drops you into the boots of a helicopter pilot who also happens to be a stealth operative—because the ’80s had no patience for specialization. Between air m...

Released in 1989, this game has you exploring a tomb filled with ancient evils. Navigate through dark corridors, solve puzzles, and confront the awakening demons. It's like playing...

Chrono Quest II is a science-fiction adventure that combines exploration, puzzles, strange worlds, and the usual hazards of wandering around somewhere the locals probably wish you ...

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...