abandonware games sorted by popularity

Great Napoleonic Battles is the kind of game that assumes you are ready to command armies and possibly rewrite history before breakfast. In Great Napoleonic Battles, strategy is ev...

Starquake is a weird DOS science fiction platform game developed by Bubble Bus Software in 1988 and designed by Stephen Crow and Dave Collins. The Commodore 64 version bo...

Space Quest: The Lost Chapter is a curious artifact released in 2001 by dedicated fans who decided Roger Wilco deserved one more misadventure. Essentially a remake and expansion of...

Think Top Gun but with less Tom Cruise and more pixelated explosions. Chopper Duel pits you against a friend (or the AI) in one-on-one rotorcraft carnage. It’s fast, twitchy,...

In Extremis from 1993 is one of those lesser-known titles that surprises players with its ambition. Mixing action and strategy, it places you in dangerous situations where quick th...

This 1992 DOS version of Scrabble takes the world’s most civilized word battle and turns it into a duel between man and silicon. The AI opponent doesn’t cheat (much), b...

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...

Silicon Dreams by Level 9 Computing is a trilogy of interactive fiction (text adventure) games released in the mid-1980s. The trilogy includes three separate games: Snowball, Retur...

Flightmare turns the simple act of flying into a slightly mischievous obstacle course. Instead of grand realism, it opts for arcade charm, challenging you to navigate tight spaces ...

In Battle Master (1991), you play as a heavily armored murder-hobo leading an army across a fantasy world that really doesn’t want you there. It’s part action-RPG, part...

Clyde is no hero—he's just a guy in a helmet trying to jump through castles and avoid death by... everything. Clyde's Adventure is a charming little platformer that dares to ...

No, not that Battlestar. Battlestar (1996) is more obscure than a reboot that never happened. Set in deep space with a top-down view and UI only a Windows 3.x user could love, it m...

Step right up to At the Carnival (1990), a puzzle game that mixes traditional brain-teasers with the kind of carnival theming that makes you question whether the developers had eve...

Before AI could annihilate grandmasters, Psion Chess was already humbling humans back in 1985. Available for DOS and Macintosh, this game wasn’t flashy, but it didn’t n...

Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition is an educational computer game released in 1992 by Broderbund Software. It's part of the popular Carmen Sandiego franchise, des...

Evets is a puzzle game that proves simplicity can be deceptive. With minimal graphics and a straightforward premise, it invites you in gently before revealing its true complexity. ...

Before BurgerTime stole the fast-food spotlight, there was Burger Blaster—a game where you build burgers by shooting them. With a gun. Because why not? This early arcade-styl...

Released in 1993, Eye of the Storm is an action-oriented game that embraces speed and spectacle. You’re thrust into fast-paced scenarios where reflexes matter more than long-...

Ever wondered what it’s like to fly inches from another jet’s tail while defying both gravity and common sense? Blue Angels: Formation Flight Simulation (1989, DOS) tri...

Visions of the Aftermath: The Boomtown is an abandoned simulation game with role-playing elements developed by Mindscape and released in 1988 exclusively for DOS. Visions of the Af...