abandonware games sorted by popularity

Squarez Deluxe! is a 1993 puzzle game built around colored blocks, careful positioning, and the increasingly dangerous realization that your apparently brilliant move has just ruin...

There’s something oddly hypnotic about Gapper, a game that feels like it was assembled during a coffee-fueled night by someone who really liked simple mechanics and didn&rsqu...

Rastan is Conan-the-Barbarian energy distilled into a side-scrolling adventure where your primary verb is “destroy.” The DOS port lacks a bit of arcade sparkle, but the...

Archery (1985) is what happens when someone says, “Hey, what if we made a bow-and-arrow game with the graphical fidelity of a cave painting?” You shoot arrows. That&rsq...

Ikari III: The Rescue takes the military action of its predecessors and adds one crucial ingredient: punching. Released in 1990 for DOS, it shifts from run-and-gun chaos toward bea...

Rad Warrior is a 1986 action game that sends players into a dangerous post-apocalyptic world where survival depends on exploration, combat, and quick reactions. The player takes co...

Released in 1984 for DOS, Felony! is a strange and ambitious early action game that puts you in the role of a criminal on the run. Instead of focusing on a single mechanic, it thro...

Hamburger Hell from 1986 is one of those titles that practically dares you to ask, “What were they thinking?” The premise is gloriously absurd, and the execution doesn&...

By 1999, Liero had become a cult favorite thanks to its frantic real-time battles between heavily armed worms. Unlike turn-based competitors, the action never pauses, creating chao...

Westphaser is a fast-paced arcade shooter built around the familiar idea that a small spacecraft can somehow be expected to save the universe before lunch. The action takes place o...

Pharoah's Curse is a 1998 Windows 3.x adventure game that embraces the mystery and atmosphere of ancient Egypt. Players explore environments filled with secrets, puzzles, and super...

Shadow Knights is a 1990 DOS action game inspired by the world of ninjas and medieval warriors. Players control a highly trained fighter who must move through dangerous environment...

If you’ve ever stared at a Monopoly board and thought, “This needs more spreadsheets,” then Oligopoly is basically your spiritual home. Released in 1987 for DOS, ...

IVAN (Iter Vehemens ad Necem) is one of the strangest and deepest roguelikes ever created. Released in 2001, it combines brutal difficulty with extraordinary detail, from limb dama...

The wonderfully direct title If It Moves, Shoot It! leaves little room for misunderstanding. Released in 1989, it is a side-scrolling shooter where diplomacy is not among the avail...

Columbus Discovery (1992, DOS) is a history-flavored point-and-click adventure where you, as a pixelated Christopher Columbus, set sail to "discover" lands that are already very mu...

HTML Tads is a development tool aimed at creating interactive fiction for the web, bringing the wonderfully old-fashioned pleasure of text adventures into a more modern environment...

In 1990, strategy games were still figuring out how serious they wanted to be, and Frontline sits comfortably in that experimental phase. This DOS title drops players into a tactic...

IBM Fixed Disk Organizer is exactly the sort of utilitarian software that reveals how seriously early PC users had to take their storage. Released in 1983, it was designed to help ...

Operation Market Garden is a 1985 historical strategy game based on the ambitious Allied operation during the Second World War. Players take part in a campaign involving airborne f...

Sword Quest 2: Tale of the Talisman continues the fantasy adventures of its predecessor, offering another journey filled with exploration, enemies, treasure, and the sort of ancien...

Star Wars: Rebel Assault is a 1993 interactive action game designed to recreate the cinematic excitement of the original trilogy through pre-rendered sequences, scripted missions, ...

Based on the blockbuster film, Last Action Hero arrived on DOS in 1993 with all the over-the-top action one would expect from a movie starring an unstoppable cinematic hero. Player...

Kampfgruppe delivers a detailed tactical wargaming experience inspired by World War II operations, asking players to command armored units with careful planning instead of blind ag...

Klass of 99 is a compact educational game built around the sort of schoolroom challenges that were once considered perfectly acceptable entertainment for a computer. Rather than th...

Infiltrator 2 basically asks: “What if we took everything from the first game and doubled down?” The result is a sequel that’s larger, louder, and just as gleeful...

Syberia 2 continues Kate Walker's unusual journey, picking up the story after the events of the first game and taking her even deeper into a mysterious world of automatons, remote ...

The classic television quiz show made its way to computers with Jeopardy! in 1987. Players compete by answering questions presented in the show's famous answer-and-question format,...

D-Fend Reloaded it's one of the most user-friendly front ends for the popular DOS-BOX emulator. The installer download includes the latest versione of DOS-BOX and is available for ...

Beyond Divinity is an action RPG developed by Larian Studios and released in 2004 as the direct sequel to Divine Divinity. It builds on its predecessor’s isometric, real-time...