abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1990 for DOS, Soviet is a cold war thriller that plays out like an interactive spy novel. You’re an American journalist turned reluctant agent, caught in a tangle...

Titans of Steel: Warring Suns is a tactical role-playing game where enormous machines settle arguments in the least environmentally friendly way possible. Players command teams of ...

Despite the baffling title (Book I – Chapter 2, yes, really), this is a charmingly earnest old-school RPG. Think “Ultima clone with extra oatmeal” and you're clos...

Vroom is a racing game that takes a fairly simple premise and pushes it toward a convincing sense of speed. Released in 1994 for DOS, it puts you behind the wheel of fast cars and ...

Empire Soccer 94 is football stripped of glamour and presented with a straight face that makes everything unintentionally funny. There are no licenses, no famous players, and no at...

Released in 2000, Extreme Shopper is one of those games that sounds like a joke—until you realize it fully commits to the premise. You play as a shopper navigating a chaotic ...

Soul Crystal is a Japanese-style role-playing adventure built around exploration, battles, character development, and a fantasy story involving magic and mysterious powers. Players...

Phantasie 1 is a 1987 role-playing game that helped establish many of the traditions later associated with computer fantasy adventures. Players create a party of heroes, explore da...

Vampyr: Talisman of Invocation is an obscure fantasy adventure built around exploration, combat, and the hunt for magical objects. The setting has all the ingredients you might exp...

Great Naval Battles vol. 4: Burning Steel shifts focus to earlier conflicts, offering a different flavor of naval strategy. In Great Naval Battles vol. 4, the mechanics remain deep...

Metal Marines takes the familiar concept of strategic warfare and launches it into space, where players build bases, deploy powerful weapons, and attempt to destroy enemy installat...

Ulises is a mythological adventure that wears its classical inspiration proudly, even when the technology struggles to keep up. Drawing loosely from Homer’s Odyssey, the game...

Hellboy: Dogs of the Night brings Mike Mignola's red-handed paranormal investigator to the world of PC action games. Released in 2000, it sends Hellboy through dark environments fi...

Guardians: Agents of Justice puts the player in the role of a superhero-style operative tasked with dealing with threats that are considerably less interested in obeying the law. T...

Operation: Inner Space is a 1994 Windows 3.x game that takes players on a strange journey through the microscopic world inside the human body. Rather than exploring distant planets...

Robot Rascals is a 1987 DOS strategy and puzzle game featuring mischievous robots and a playful science-fiction setting. Players must manage their mechanical characters while solvi...

If adrenaline-fueled car chases aren’t your thing, maybe meticulous Civil War simulations are. Decision at Gettysburg (1990) is a detailed, turn-based strategy game that lets...

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...

So, you think you know Star Trek? The Next Generation – Trivia (1990, DOS) is here to prove you wrong. This is a straight-up quiz game, packed with hundreds of questions rang...

Think of Bass Tour (1992) as the road trip version of virtual fishing. More simulation than arcade, it lets you travel, pick locations, study conditions, and obsess over bait types...

SWIV 3D takes the classic overhead shooting action of SWIV and throws it into a three-dimensional environment. Released in 1996, it gives you a heavily armed vehicle and a battlefi...

Sierra Championship Boxing is a 1985 boxing simulation that brings the sport into the world of early computer gaming. Players can step into the ring, choose tactics, manage their f...

Grand Prix Wizard sounds like it might involve spells, but sadly no one is casting fireballs at rival drivers. Instead, Grand Prix Wizard leans into management, asking you to handl...

Flame Dragon Plus: Marks of Wind is a Japanese-style role-playing game with a strong emphasis on fantasy adventure, character development, exploration, and tactical battles. Player...

Released in the mid-’80s, Earthly delights is an odd, almost poetic little DOS title that feels more like an experiment than a traditional game. It blends abstract visuals wi...

CyClones is a first-person shooter where you take on the role of a bio-engineered super-soldier fighting alien invaders. The controls are smooth, the weapons varied, and the level ...

If Risk and Excel had a baby during WWII, it would be Clash of Steel. You command nations, move armies, manage production, and try to stop history from repeating itself—usual...

Released in 1993, Lethal Tender combines platform action with a satirical storyline centered on greed, money, and determined heroes. Players jump through colorful levels while coll...

Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom has perhaps the greatest title-to-content ratio in gaming history. Released in 1995, it embraces absurdity with every pixel, delivering ar...

Before WWII games flooded the market, Knights of the Desert (1983, DOS) was already reenacting the North African campaign in pixels. You command Rommel’s Afrika Korps—o...