abandonware games sorted by popularity

Realms of Chaos is a 1995 action platformer that combines fast-paced combat with a colorful fantasy world and a generous dose of old-school difficulty. Players choose between two c...

Sword Quest 1: The Search is a fantasy adventure built around exploration, combat, and the hunt for an important artifact. Released in 1992, it follows the familiar but effective f...

CHAMP Pac-em is a Pac-Man-inspired arcade game built around the familiar pleasure of navigating mazes while collecting items and avoiding enemies. Anyone who has ever confidently e...

No guns. No glory. Just two invisible players navigating a weird Tron-like maze to steal each other’s flag. Capture the Flag is what you get when someone says “let&rsqu...

If you've ever wanted to pop bubbles while being taunted by adorable dinosaurs, Bust-A-Move Again (1996, DOS) is your jam. It’s like Tetris met a bubble tea menu and had a hy...

Warhammer 40000: Chaos Gate brings the grim darkness of the far future into a turn-based tactical battlefield where subtle diplomacy has been replaced by heavily armed Space Marine...

Melody Maker 3 is a music creation package that brings composition and experimentation to the DOS environment. Long before modern digital audio workstations turned music production...

Bright, quirky, and just a little bit mischievous, Finders Keepers feels like it wandered in from another dimension where puzzles and platforming share equal custody of your patien...

No, not that Battlestar. Battlestar (1996) is more obscure than a reboot that never happened. Set in deep space with a top-down view and UI only a Windows 3.x user could love, it m...

Slash'EM is a substantial 1997 variant of the legendary roguelike NetHack, expanding its already enormous collection of monsters, items, classes, spells, and gameplay possibilities...

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....

Feudal Japan gets the wargame treatment in Conquest of Japan, a strategy title that mixes historical context with tactical ambition. You manage provinces, wage war, and occasionall...

Lynx is a text-based web browser that became famous for doing something that sounds almost impossible to younger computer users: browsing the World Wide Web without displaying pict...

Monuments of Mars (1991) is one of those puzzle-platformers where patience is less a virtue and more a survival tool. You’re stranded on Mars, exploring alien ruins filled wi...

Sky Runner is a 1987 DOS arcade game centered on fast movement and aerial action, throwing the player into a futuristic environment filled with obstacles and enemies. Its design co...

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...

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...

18th Airborne is what happens when a military recruitment pamphlet and a tactical shooter have a baby. You’re thrown into the boots of a paratrooper with a mission, a gun, an...

Hook brings the world of Peter Pan into video game form, blending platforming with a light sense of adventure. Released in 1992, it captures the whimsical tone of its source materi...

Released in 1990, Dawn Raider is one of those obscure DOS shooters that probably spent more time in floppy disk boxes than in actual computers. It’s a vertical shoot-’e...

What happens when a basketball game forgets about realism and goes full cartoon? Basket Master (1990), that’s what. This Spanish-developed DOS gem pits two oddly animated bal...

Amerzone is like stepping into a dream where logic is optional and atmosphere is everything. You play a journalist unraveling the mystery of a dying explorer’s last journey, ...

Before AI could annihilate grandmasters, Psion Chess was already humbling humans back in 1985. Available for DOS and Macintosh, this game wasn’t flashy, but it didn’t n...

The Games: Winter Edition brings a collection of winter sporting events to the home computer, giving players a chance to compete in snowy disciplines without having to leave the ho...

Daffy Duck PI: The Case of the Missing Letters is a Looney Tunes spin on the classic edutainment formula. As Daffy, you’re on the trail of a nefarious plot to steal the alpha...

Slam! is a 1993 Windows 3.x game built around fast arcade-style action and competitive play. Its simple presentation reflects the period, but the gameplay aims to provide immediate...

Super Pinball by Russco is a straightforward computer pinball game that attempts to recreate the noisy, chaotic pleasure of a real machine without requiring a pocket full of coins....

The sequel that proved even Dungeon Masters need sequels. Dungeon Master’s Assistant Vol. 2 refined the formula with more monsters, better encounter tools, and enough data to...

Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition revisits the classic American geography chase with an expanded presentation and the same wonderfully simple premise: find Carmen...

With a name like Dink Smallwood, you’d expect something ridiculous—and you’d be right. Released in 1998 for Windows XP, this action RPG follows a pig farmer with ...