abandonware games sorted by popularity

Acquire (1989, DOS) brings boardroom drama to your DOS screen, turning you into a hotel tycoon in a game where the real enemy is... math. It's a faithful adaptation of the classic ...

Long before indie developers made “roguelike” a buzzword, someone decided to fuse Doom with permadeath and ASCII graphics. The result: Doom: The Roguelike (2005). On pa...

Black Friday (1983) isn’t about shopping mayhem—though you might wish it were after trying to figure out what’s going on. This early DOS title is part stock marke...

Evolution is an early experiment in simulating progress, and it wears its ambition proudly. The game attempts to model development and change over time, often in abstract ways that...

Fleet Sweep takes the high drama of naval warfare and filters it through early-80s minimalism. Think less cinematic spectacle and more abstract tension as you maneuver through trea...

Tunnels of Armageddon is a video game developed by Logical Design Works and released in 1989 by California Dreams for various home computer systems, including DOS, the Commodore 64...

MicroLeague Baseball 2 improves upon its predecessor with expanded statistics, updated features, and a deeper simulation of America's favorite pastime. Players can manage teams, ma...

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...

In Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour, tennis is stripped down to its essentials: a racket, a ball, and the growing suspicion that your opponent has somehow mastered the laws of physics...

Football Glory (1995, DOS) approaches the beautiful game with a playful smirk and a willingness to bend reality for entertainment’s sake. The players move with exaggerated fl...

Treasure Trap is an abandoned isometric action-adventure game published for DOS, Amiga and Atari ST by Electronic Zoo in 1990. Treasure Trap was developed by Emerald Software ...

Before million-dollar stadiums and sponsorship deals, there was Street Sports Baseball (1987, DOS)—where kids played in backyards, on cracked concrete, and sometimes next to ...

Sleuth: A Murder Mystery is a 1983 detective game that puts the player in the role of an investigator trying to solve a murder through deduction and careful examination of evidence...

King's Quest III Redux: To Heir is Human is a fan-made remake that lovingly modernizes Sierra's classic while respecting everything that made the original memorable. Enhanced visua...

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,...

Independence War 2: Edge Of Chaos refines its predecessor’s ideas into a more open-ended and player-driven experience. Trading, piracy, and exploration play a much larger rol...

Xenophage: Alien BloodSport is a fighting game that leans heavily into its bizarre premise, featuring grotesque alien combatants battling it out in brutal arenas. It is unapologeti...

Originally designed by Cyan, Manhole offers an experience closer to an interactive storybook than a conventional adventure game. Players explore whimsical locations by clicking thr...

Mindwheel is a distinctive science fiction adventure that combines interactive storytelling with a strange, dreamlike atmosphere and a focus on exploration. Players encounter unusu...

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...

Gnome Ranger feels like the kind of game that was designed by someone who really loved puzzles but maybe didn’t love explaining them. You control a gnome (clearly a recurring...

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...

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 ...

NCSA Mosaic was one of the earliest web browsers to appear on the market. It was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illino...