abandonware games sorted by popularity

Beats of Rage is what happens when fans of Streets of Rage decide to stop waiting for Sega and just build their own game—with a side of King of Fighters for flavor. This DOS ...

Star Control is a 1990 science-fiction strategy game that mixes space exploration, diplomacy, resource management, and tactical combat into an unusually entertaining package. Playe...

Rock 'n Roll is a 1989 DOS puzzle game that combines rolling-ball mechanics with increasingly elaborate mazes and obstacles. Players guide a ball through levels filled with hazards...

In Cutthroats, you’re a diver hired for a treasure-hunting expedition that’s about to go very wrong. This text adventure from Infocom mixes underwater exploration with ...

Mystery of the Mummy combines classic adventure gaming with ancient Egyptian mysteries, inviting players to explore a world of tombs, secrets, and puzzles that have presumably been...

Superman: The Man of Steel is an action game built around one of the most difficult tasks in gaming: making Superman feel appropriately powerful without making the entire game comp...

Galleons of Glory invites players to sail the high seas in search of fame, fortune, and possibly a few cannonballs heading directly toward their ship. Naval combat games from this ...

Incursion is a modern love letter to classic tactical RPGs, clearly inspired by tabletop rulesets and games like early Fallout. It throws you into a turn-based world where position...

1999’s BitStorm is what happens when someone decides to make a strategy game and forgets to put the brakes on the caffeine. It’s fast, it’s furious, and you&rsquo...

Crime Time blends point-and-click adventure with a murder mystery that’s as much about wit as it is about clues. You play an innocent man framed for murder, scrambling to gat...

Forbidden Quest (1983, DOS) belongs to that early era when imagination did most of the heavy lifting. Sparse visuals and text-driven cues invite you to picture grand dangers lurkin...

With Gnome Ranger 2: Ingrid’s Back, things get a bit more polished, though not necessarily more sane. The puzzles return, along with the dreamlike environments and that pecul...

Kingdom of Kroz is a delightful blend of action, puzzle solving, and exploration that quickly became one of the defining entries in the famous Kroz series. Armed with limited resou...

The Ancient Art of War at Sea takes the strategic ideas of its predecessor and moves them onto the water, where armies are replaced by fleets and the battlefield becomes considerab...

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...

Quest for the Unicorn is a 1990 fantasy adventure that sends players on a quest involving magic, danger, and the sort of mythical creature that is never simply standing around wait...

Ballistix asks: “What if air hockey was controlled by futuristic cannons?” The answer: chaos. You frantically shoot pucks with directional blasts while the physics engi...

Operation Combat: Computer Battle Game is a 1990 strategy title that brings military conflict to the computer screen in a form designed for players who enjoy planning rather than s...

Yes, this exists. Blues Brothers RPG (2004, Windows XP) is what happens when someone looks at a legendary blues duo and says, “What if they fought zombies with saxophones?&rd...

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...

Nanotank is a 1993 Windows 3.x strategy game that takes the concept of armored warfare and shrinks it down to a delightfully miniature scale. Instead of commanding enormous armies ...

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 ...

Xenocide is an early example of space combat that leans heavily on atmosphere and tension, even if its technical limitations occasionally get in the way. It tries to create a sense...

NCAA Road to the Final Four is a 1991 college basketball game focused on the journey toward the ultimate tournament prize. Rather than simply throwing players onto the court for a ...

Solidarnosc is a 1991 DOS game built around the Polish political and social movement that became one of the defining forces in the country's modern history. Rather than offering co...

Visions of the Aftermath: The Boomtown is an abandoned simulation game with role-playing elements developed by Mindscape and released in 1988 exclusively for DOS. Visions of the Af...

In 1991, Les Manley in: Lost in L.A. continued the misadventures of its perpetually unlucky protagonist with another humorous point-and-click adventure. This time, Les navigates th...