abandonware games sorted by popularity

Skifree is an adorable downhill romp… at least until the monster shows up. You start by zipping peacefully through flags and jumps, enjoying the zen simplicity of early Wind...

Before Donald Duck’s Playground, most kids were told video games were a waste of time. Here, Donald proves otherwise by turning menial labor into an epic adventure. Want to s...

Gettysburg: Civil War Battles is a detailed strategy game centered on one of the most famous battles of the American Civil War. Rather than reducing the conflict to a simple exchan...

Released in 1988, Journey to the Center of the Earth draws inspiration from Jules Verne's famous novel and invites players into a subterranean world filled with mysteries and dange...

Ever wanted to combine your love for trivia with Old Testament knowledge and 256-color DOS graphics? Bible Builder is here to test your biblical memory one verse at a time. It's li...

Post-apocalyptic survival meets real estate management in Burntime, where the world is ruined, but you still need to hire employees and secure water rights. It’s like Mad Max...

Heavy Barrel is an action game that embraces chaos with enthusiasm, throwing enemies at you in a way that feels both overwhelming and oddly satisfying. The gameplay is straightforw...

Acheton (1987, DOS) is one of those text adventures where the game cheerfully tries to kill you every five minutes — and does so with words. You're tossed into a sprawling, b...

Interpose in 1996 is a first-person shooter that embraces speed and aggression without apology. Set in a sci-fi world of corridors and conflict, it delivers classic run-and-gun act...

Vroom is a racing game that takes a fairly simple premise and pushes it toward a convincing sense of speed. Released in 1994 for DOS, it puts you behind the wheel of fast cars and ...

Yacht Racing Simulator proves that even in the '80s, developers were brave enough to turn the thrilling world of rich people boating slowly into a video game. With graphics that co...

NFL Football is a 1992 American football game that puts players in charge of teams, plays, and the kind of strategic decisions that can make a coach look like a genius one minute a...

In Tau Ceti, you’re the lone pilot of a heavily armed hoverbike trying to reboot a dying colony under an alien sun. It’s slow, moody, and brilliantly atmospheric. The v...

Pharoah's Curse is a 1998 Windows 3.x adventure game that embraces the mystery and atmosphere of ancient Egypt. Players explore environments filled with secrets, puzzles, and super...

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...

Up Periscope! from 1988 lets you take command of a submarine, which sounds exciting until you realize just how much responsibility that entails. Managing depth, speed, and position...

Ah, Championship Manager 93, the game that taught us yelling at pixels is a valid emotional outlet. It's you, a keyboard, and a list of players with stamina ratings. No fancy graph...

Basketball games often focus on realism, but Jammit preferred style, attitude, and spectacular dunks. Released in 1994, it offers fast-paced one-on-one and two-on-two street basket...

You’d think a spring break trip would be relaxing. Not when you're a magically inclined college student with a knack for attracting trouble (and bikinis). Spellcasting 301 se...

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...

Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun, released in 1989 for DOS, is a platformer that looks cheerful but hides a surprisingly mean streak. Set in a circus filled with traps, clowns, and ...

No Greater Glory is a 1991 strategy game that takes players into the world of military command and asks them to make the decisions that determine whether an army achieves victory o...

Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels is a 1988 DOS adventure inspired by the world of Sherlock Holmes and centered on a mystery involving the British Crown Jewels. Players inve...

Stormbringer: Elric of Melnibone brings Michael Moorcock's dark fantasy world to the computer, placing the player in the role of Elric, the tragic albino sorcerer and emperor whose...

Black Friday (1983) isn’t about shopping mayhem—though you might wish it were after trying to figure out what’s going on. This early DOS title is part stock marke...

Supernova is a classic science-fiction adventure that puts the player in the uncomfortable position of having to save the galaxy while also figuring out what the game actually expe...

Sky Shark is a 1989 DOS conversion of the classic vertically scrolling arcade shooter, putting players behind the controls of a fighter aircraft and filling the screen with enemy p...

Trinity is one of Infocom's more unusual interactive fiction adventures, mixing fantasy, science fiction, surreal imagery, and a healthy dose of philosophical weirdness. You begin ...

Math Cad 2.5 is a mathematical computing package from an era when serious technical calculations were increasingly moving from paper and calculators onto personal computers. It pro...

Released back when computers still hummed ominously and monitors glowed like radioactive jellyfish, Epidemic! throws you into the grim business of stopping a deadly outbreak. The i...