abandonware games sorted by popularity

Cosmic Crusader is proof that sometimes simple is perfect. You’re a lone pilot defending space against endless waves of enemies, in a game that’s basically a love lette...

One-Nil Soccer Manager is a text-based soccer management simulation game that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed for various home computer systems, inc...

Bank Streek Writer Plus is a word processor from the DOS era, when writing on a computer still felt like a fairly sophisticated trick. Applications such as this one were expected t...

Stunt Island is part flight simulator, part movie-making playground, and part excuse to crash aircraft repeatedly in the name of entertainment. You take control of various planes a...

Crown is a strategy game from an era when computers were perfectly happy to make you read the manual before allowing you anywhere near the throne. Its central appeal lies in planni...

Volkswriter 3 is a classic DOS word processor from an era when replacing a typewriter with a computer was still a genuinely transformative idea. It provides the basic tools needed ...

Modem Wars is an early strategy game that feels almost prophetic today, especially because it was designed around competitive play long before online gaming became commonplace. Pla...

Great Naval Battles vol. 3: Fury in the Pacific expands the scope and the intensity, throwing you into larger conflicts with even more to manage. In Great Naval Battles vol. 3, the...

DataEase 4 was a database management system designed to let users build applications around structured information without having to become professional programmers first. Its phil...

Before realistic fighting games, there was Boxer Rebellion—a 1982 title so primitive, it makes Pong look flashy. It’s boxing with fewer rules and more pixels per punch....

Redneck Rampage is a 1997 first-person shooter that takes the genre into deliberately ridiculous rural territory. Players battle through bizarre environments filled with hostile re...

Seal Team (1993) drops you into the muddy waters of the Vietnam War as part of an elite Navy SEAL squad. It’s surprisingly realistic for its time—meticulously tactical,...

The Sporting News Baseball brings America's favorite pastime to the computer with a surprisingly serious approach to statistics, strategy and play-by-play action. Rather than simpl...

Willow is a fantasy action adventure inspired by the world of the classic film, placing the player in a magical landscape filled with enemies, exploration, and the usual assortment...

Trivial Pursuit brings the familiar board-game quiz format to the computer, replacing cardboard, tiny coloured wedges, and argumentative relatives with a keyboard and a screen. The...

Thexder 2: Firehawk expands the original transforming-robot formula with larger environments, new enemies and a greater emphasis on combat. The basic trick remains wonderfully simp...

Tracon 2 puts the player in the demanding position of managing air traffic, which sounds peaceful until several aircraft arrive at once and all of them expect you to know exactly w...

What happens when a basketball game forgets about realism and goes full cartoon? Basket Master (1990), that’s what. This Spanish-developed DOS gem pits two oddly animated bal...

Super Cauldron is a platform adventure with a distinctly magical flavor, sending the player through colorful environments filled with enemies, hazards, and the usual assortment of ...

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...

Vaxine is a first-person shooter with a wonderfully strange premise: you are flying through the interior of a human body, blasting viruses and other microscopic nasties before they...

If you ever wanted to simulate being a helicopter pilot without leaving your MS-DOS comfort zone, Bravo Romeo Delta has you covered. This 1993 sim throws acronyms, radar screens, a...

Bill Elliott's NASCAR Challenge brings stock-car racing to the computer with a focus on speed, car setup and the unforgiving business of keeping a powerful machine on the track. Pl...

Film Studio Tycoon Alpha is a management simulation about the glamorous world of filmmaking, except that glamour quickly gives way to budgets, scheduling, production decisions, and...

Mean 18 (1986) is a golf game with more attitude than you’d expect from a sport usually associated with polite applause and quiet respect. This is arcade golf: fast, flashy, ...

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...

Marathon 2: Durandal builds confidently upon the original by refining the action, expanding the story, and introducing multiplayer features that became legendary among fans. The ca...

In the late 80s, when gamebooks were trying to escape paper and sneak into floppy disks, GrailQuest shows up wearing Monty Python armor and refusing to be taken seriously. In Grail...

Framed is a puzzle-platformer that treats each screen like a small mechanical riddle. You guide your character through hazards that feel carefully arranged, almost theatrical in th...

Strike Fleet puts you in command of naval forces and asks you to make decisions that are considerably more complicated than simply pointing a ship toward the enemy. Different vesse...