abandonware games sorted by popularity

Imagine Tetris but in three dimensions and your brain slowly melting into a puddle of confusion. That is Blockout. You drop 3D shapes into a pit and try to line them up, but nothin...

There’s something oddly hypnotic about Gapper, a game that feels like it was assembled during a coffee-fueled night by someone who really liked simple mechanics and didn&rsqu...

The Basket Manager is a basketball management simulation for players who would rather control the team from the bench than personally chase the ball around the court. Released in 1...

Tony La Russa Ultimate Baseball aims to deliver a serious baseball simulation rather than a quick arcade game, and it takes its sporting responsibilities very seriously indeed. Pla...

It’s Pac-Man, except it’s… not. Cap Man is a low-budget clone with just enough charm to avoid immediate deletion. You’ve got the dots, the ghosts, the powe...

Hat Trick is a compact sports game centered on ice hockey and built around the straightforward pleasures of shooting, defending, and trying to put the puck in the net before the ot...

Dreadnoughts is a naval strategy game built around the imposing battleships of the early twentieth century. Here, subtlety often gives way to armor, artillery, and the rather persu...

By 1992, Vol. 3 wrapped up the trilogy with even more complex scenarios. At this point, the series had become less of a game and more of an interactive textbook—though that&r...

If you ever wanted to simulate being a helicopter pilot without leaving your MS-DOS comfort zone, Bravo Romeo Delta has you covered. This 1993 sim throws acronyms, radar screens, a...

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...

Worlds of Legend: Son of the Empire is an ambitious fantasy role-playing adventure that drops the player into a world of magic, danger and the usual assortment of people who urgent...

Ever wanted to pilot a walking death machine through a series of exploding industrial hellscapes while being shot at from every angle? Welcome to Amok. This 1996 mech-shooter is a ...

Firezone is one of those late-80s action titles that seems determined to test both your reflexes and your optimism. It drops you into hostile territory and expects you to cope. The...

There’s a quiet ambition to First Expedition, a game that invites you into exploration with a mix of curiosity and caution. It doesn’t rush; instead, it nudges you forw...

The sequel nobody expected but everyone button-mashed through. Yie Ar Kung Fu 2 adds more characters, more chaos, and less coherence. This time you’re Lee (no relation to Bru...

Before Tetris conquered the world, Nyet gave DOS users their own block-stacking fix. It’s essentially a clone, but with its own quirks and rough edges — the kind of thi...

In Taipan for Windows, you’re not a hero, you’re a 19th-century capitalist trying to get rich trading tea, silk, and the occasional bit of opium in the South China Sea....

Star Fleet 2: Krellan Commander builds on its predecessor with a larger and more ambitious space strategy experience. Players command a starship during a major interstellar conflic...

Crown is a strategy game from an era when computers were perfectly happy to make you read the manual before allowing you anywhere near the throne. Its central appeal lies in planni...

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...

Hard Drivin' 2 takes everything its predecessor attempted and pushes it a little further, like a sequel that insists it has matured but still enjoys causing vehicular embarrassment...

Released in 1992, Sexy Droids ventured into science fiction with a mixture of adult humor and futuristic imagery. The game embraced its unusual concept wholeheartedly, presenting s...

Star Wars: Rebel Assault is a 1993 interactive action game designed to recreate the cinematic excitement of the original trilogy through pre-rendered sequences, scripted missions, ...

WitchavenRL takes the fantasy combat of Witchaven and gives it a modern roguelike treatment, creating an experience where exploration and fighting are mixed with unpredictable enco...

Hollywood Pictures turns the movie industry into a game of creativity, planning, and business decisions. Players take on the role of a studio executive, dealing with productions, s...

Sherman M4 is a 1989 DOS tank combat game centered on the famous American M4 Sherman tank. Players take control of the armored vehicle and face battlefield situations where positio...

Mortal Pong takes the simplest possible tennis-inspired game and gives it an absurdly dramatic fighting-game twist. The result is exactly as strange as the title suggests: players ...

Armored Fist is all about tanks. Big, heavy, no-nonsense tanks. It's essentially a driving sim for people who think speed is overrated and armor is fashion. Missions involve slow, ...

Safe Opening Simulator is a 1993 DOS simulation built around the surprisingly specialized art of cracking open a combination safe. Instead of blasting doors apart like an action he...

Released in 1995, AIV Networks dares to ask: what if the real hero of industrialization was... logistics? Here, you’re not conquering worlds - you’re routing freight. B...