abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

By 1994, the Ishar series decided subtlety was overrated. Ishar 3 is bigger, bolder, and occasionally more confusing than its predecessors. Your party once again explores vast land...

Get ready to drive a tank very slowly while also being very stressed. Abrams Battle Tank (1989, DOS) puts you in the commander’s seat of America’s steel behemoth, and s...

Little-known but oddly captivating, Kurtan (1990, DOS) feels like someone’s ambitious homebrew fantasy experiment gone right. You play a wandering warrior exploring a pixelat...

Exile II: Crystal Souls is the kind of RPG that quietly sneaks into your life and then refuses to leave your thoughts. Released in 1996, it looks humble, even a bit scruffy, but be...

Released in 1983 for DOS, Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator is what happens when early arcade design meets Federation bureaucracy. Vector-style graphics make you feel like ...

Omega (1989, DOS) is what happens when someone hands you a robot, a wrench, and a thick manual, then says, “Good luck out there.” Instead of piloting a mech, you actual...

The Curse of Monkey Island is the third installment in the iconic Monkey Island point-and-click adventure series developed by LucasArts. Released in 1997, it introduced a new visua...

In Contraption Zack, you play as a kid with more mechanical gadgets than common sense. Your job? Fix a series of increasingly absurd machines in a puzzle platformer that’s eq...

Simon the Sorcerer is adventure game designed by Simon Woodroffe, developed and published by Adventure Soft and released in 1993. Often overlooked, Simon The Sorcerer is one of the...

Back in 1984, Zaxxon was the future. Isometric graphics? Whoa. Shadow effects? Mind blown. But mostly, it was a game about flying a chunky spaceship through a heavily fortified spa...

In Core War Plus, programming isn’t just for making spreadsheets—it’s for virtual combat. You write tiny programs that battle for control of computer memory, turn...

If text adventures are your thing, Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative (1985, DOS) will either delight or destroy you. You type commands to guide Kirk and crew through a no-win sc...

If you’ve ever wanted to command a basketball team without having to actually dribble or break a sweat, Omni Play Basketball (1990, DOS) has your number. The game lets you ma...

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...

Finally, a game for people who think solitaire is just too wild. Bridge 7.0 is the digital equivalent of sipping tea with your grandparents while arguing about trumps and bidding s...

Zoom! is a puzzle game that desperately wants to be cool. You're a sunglasses-wearing smiley face cruising down psychedelic gridlines while dodging blobs and filling in tiles like ...