abandonware games sorted by popularity

By 1994, RPG fans were spoiled with titles like Might and Magic and Ultima. Then along came Disciples of Steel, a brutally complex, turn-based fantasy epic for DOS. It drops you in...

Keef the Thief: A Boy and his Lockpick refuses to take fantasy role-playing too seriously, filling its world with eccentric characters, witty dialogue, and situations that regularl...

The sequel to Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch, Return to Ringworld throws you back into Larry Niven’s vast sci-fi universe—except this time, the puzzles are tougher...

Plundered Hearts is a 1987 interactive fiction adventure from Infocom that combines romance, pirates, and high-seas drama into a charming text-based story. Players take the role of...

Before Madden became a household name, 1988 gave us this DOS football classic, where plays are drawn like cave paintings and players move like molasses in January. Yet, for its tim...

Outbound is a 2001 adventure game set in a world of science fiction, exploration, and strange environments that are considerably less welcoming than the average tourist destination...

Released in 1988, Alien Fires 2199 AD looks and plays like someone tried to translate a fever dream into a sci-fi RPG. You control some dude with a chin of steel and a crew that se...

Reelect JFK is a 1994 Windows 3.x political simulation built around the idea of changing history by managing John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign and attempting to secure anothe...

Total Knockout: Championship Female Boxing brings female boxing to the computer in a straightforward sports game focused on matches, fighters, and the eternal question of whether y...

Van Buren is the codename for the ambitious Fallout 3 project that Black Isle Studios was developing before Interplay cancelled it, leaving behind one of gaming's great “what if?...

Released in 1987, Lawn Mower transforms one of the most ordinary household chores into an unexpectedly entertaining arcade challenge. Instead of relaxing behind a quiet suburban mo...

Space Ace 2: Borf’s Revenge (1991, DOS) doubles down on everything that made the first one iconic — and maddening. Borf is back, still blue, still obnoxious, and once a...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens&mdash...

Fancy a war under the sea? Battle for Atlantis (1990) asks the age-old question: what if submarines had grudges? This top-down, action strategy title throws you into a deep-sea tur...

NetHack is one of the great survivors of computer gaming, a 1987 roguelike that has been challenging players for decades with randomly generated dungeons, brutal enemies, complex s...

Super Bubble Mania is a cheerful arcade-style game built around bubbles, movement, quick reactions, and the sort of colorful action that makes it dangerously easy to say, “Just o...

Inve$t from 1990 transforms financial maneuvering into competitive gameplay, proving money can indeed be entertaining when attached to risk. Players navigate investments, strategy,...

Cutthroats: Terror on the High Seas puts you aboard ships where peaceful retirement is apparently not part of the career plan. The game mixes naval action, exploration, and the dan...

Road Runner is a 1989 DOS arcade game based on the famous cartoon rivalry between the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Players control the extraordinarily fast bird as he races thro...

Released in 1988, Serve & Volley transformed tennis into a surprisingly entertaining digital pastime. It captured the excitement of the sport without requiring players to understan...

Don’t let the title fool you — Blitz Draughts isn’t a military simulation but rather a gloriously intense checkers game from 1992. This DOS brain-bender turns the...

DuckTales: The Quest for Gold takes everyone’s favorite miserly duck, Scrooge McDuck, and sends him globetrotting for treasure. It’s part platformer, part management si...

Battlecruiser 3000AD (1996) is less a game and more a test of faith. Ambitious beyond reason, it promised total control of a massive starship—crew management, planetary landi...

Released in 1990, Dragon Strike dared to combine the wonder of Dungeons & Dragons with the thrill of first-person flight simulation. Yes, instead of piloting jets, you piloted ...

Moonbase (1990) isn’t about blasting aliens or dodging meteors—it’s about survival, planning, and resource management. You’re tasked with building a functio...

Heroes of the Lance takes the beloved fantasy setting and turns it into a side-scrolling adventure that is as ambitious as it is occasionally frustrating. Controlling a party of he...

Willy the Worm is a cheerful little arcade game built around the timeless appeal of guiding a small creature through danger while trying not to become part of the scenery. The conc...

Pyramid Power (1986) is what happens when archaeology meets abstract strategy. You’re not dodging mummies or solving hieroglyph puzzles—instead, you’re stacking t...

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...

Guns 'R' Us feels like someone looked at the early ’90s and decided subtlety was overrated. This side-scrolling shooter piles on enemies, explosions, and weapon upgrades with...