abandonware games sorted by popularity

Shadows Over Riva caps the trilogy with a confident stride. The graphics receive a welcome upgrade, the atmosphere takes a darker turn, and the narrative leans heavily into detecti...

Azalta: Cult of the Raven is what happens when a lone developer says, “I can make an RPG better than Ultima!” and sort of does. Released in 1996, this DOS dungeon crawl...

Blood Money (1990) answers the question: what if every level in a shoot-'em-up was a different kind of sci-fi fever dream? You fly through alien-infested caverns, collect cash, and...

Hot on the heels of the first, Caverns of Kroz 2 (also 1989) doesn’t mess with the formula—it sharpens it. More puzzles, more monsters, more reasons to scream at fallin...

In Air Force Commander (1992), you don’t just fly planes - you run the whole air force. Think of it as being a general with a spreadsheet addiction. Assign squadrons, manage ...

With Gnome Ranger 2: Ingrid’s Back, things get a bit more polished, though not necessarily more sane. The puzzles return, along with the dreamlike environments and that pecul...

Colonialism meets turn-based strategy in Champion of the Raj, where you attempt to conquer India with charm, cunning, and the occasional elephant race. It’s part political si...

Black Hole (1993) is a space shooter where you're thrown into the gravitational madness of, you guessed it, a black hole. The physics are wild, the enemies are relentless, and you&...

Operation Getafix (1989) is what happens when you turn a beloved comic series into a game with the precision of a wild boar wearing gloves. You play as Asterix on a quest to help G...

International Moto X in 1996 brings motocross thrills to DOS with mud, speed, and the constant threat of spectacular wipeouts. The game balances arcade accessibility with enough ch...

With a title like Pray for Death, you know you’re not signing up for a cheerful platformer. This is a fighting game with a gothic, heavy-metal aesthetic that screams 1996. It...

The sequel that proved even Dungeon Masters need sequels. Dungeon Master’s Assistant Vol. 2 refined the formula with more monsters, better encounter tools, and enough data to...

In Bert and the Snake, you are Bert. And yes, there's a snake. That’s the plot. It’s a maze game from a time when naming conventions were refreshingly honest and graphi...

Fancy a war under the sea? Battle for Atlantis (1990) asks the age-old question: what if submarines had grudges? This top-down, action strategy title throws you into a deep-sea tur...

Released in 2004, Lords of the Realm III is an interesting, sometimes controversial attempt to modernize a beloved strategy franchise. The move to full 3D and a more streamlined ap...