abandonware games sorted by popularity

Legend of the Red Dragon (1989) isn’t so much a traditional game as it is a slice of online history. This BBS door game allowed players to log in, fight monsters, flirt with ...

Flying at incredible speed sounds glamorous until you realize mountains have absolutely no intention of moving out of the way. Mach 3 delivers fast-paced action by placing players ...

If you’ve ever wondered what Bill Gates was doing before becoming a household name, Donkey BAS holds the answer: programming a game about avoiding pixelated donkeys on a high...

Rally Championships is a 1994 DOS racing game focused on rally-style competition, where speed alone is not enough to guarantee success. Players must deal with winding tracks, chang...

Monday Night Football brings the excitement of American football to the computer with a focus on play selection, strategy, and the tactical decisions that can change a game in seco...

F40 Pursuit Simulator takes a different approach by putting you in the cockpit of a fictional high-tech interceptor designed for one job: catching bad guys. Instead of large-scale ...

Galaxy is a relic from the early days of PC gaming, when the idea of exploring space could be conveyed with a handful of pixels and a lot of imagination. The gameplay is simple, re...

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 ...

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...

Ah, Betrayal—a game with a name that really sets the tone. Is it about backstabbing? Politics? Lost love? Not really. It’s actually a hybrid of strategy and role-playin...

Russian Front 2: The Kursk Campaign is a 1990 DOS strategy game focused on one of the largest armored battles of World War II. Players command forces during the Battle of Kursk, ma...

Ocean Ranger is a 1988 simulation that places the player in command of an offshore oil platform, which sounds like a perfectly calm occupation until you remember that the ocean, ma...

Wizard's Crown is a classic fantasy role-playing game that gives players a party of adventurers, a dangerous world, and a generous supply of reasons to regret entering the nearest ...

Eight Ball Deluxe is digital pinball with a swagger, the kind that wears mirrored sunglasses indoors and dares you to beat its high score. Based on the famous Bally table, this 199...

Udoiana Raunes is one of those late-DOS curiosities that feels like it escaped from a developer’s hard drive by accident. It presents itself as a fantasy adventure, but quick...

QBasic 1.1 is Microsoft's approachable programming environment for DOS and one of the easiest ways an entire generation learned that computers could be told exactly what to do. It ...

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...

Back in 1986, when most PC users were still figuring out floppy disks, along came Dr. Ruth Computer Game of Good Sex, a title that promised to educate while entertaining. Imagine t...

Timequest is a time-travel adventure in which history itself becomes your playground, provided you are willing to accept the considerable responsibility of not accidentally destroy...

Bruce Lee is a classic martial-arts action game inspired by the legendary film star, placing the player in control of a nimble fighter facing guards, ninjas and assorted obstacles....

In Dragon Riders: Chronicles of Pern, you don’t just ride dragons—you babysit them, talk to them, and occasionally save the world while trying not to fall off mid-fligh...

Shadow Sorcerer is a fantasy role-playing adventure set in the Dragonlance universe, combining exploration, party management, combat, and a strong emphasis on narrative. Players co...

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...

The Big Three is an unusual sports title centered on the three major American sports traditionally associated with the phrase: football, baseball, and basketball. Released in 1989,...

Tera: La Cité des Crânes is a moody adventure that leans heavily on atmosphere and mystery. The world feels strange and slightly unsettling, with puzzles that require patience an...

Swap is a puzzle game built around a wonderfully simple idea: rearrange things until the board behaves itself. Released in 1992, it challenges the player with increasingly tricky a...

Beast is ASCII horror at its most gloriously minimal. You’re a brave soul (well, a smiley face) trapped in a dungeon with sentient blobs (the titular beasts) that want you ve...

Long before fan-made clones flooded the internet, there was David's Kong (1984). It’s a straight-up Donkey Kong knockoff, but with enough quirks to make you smile. The premis...

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 ...

Sub Command is a detailed naval simulation that puts you in command of modern submarines and expects considerably more than random button pressing. The game focuses on tactical sub...