abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

In this 1992 DOS RPG, you play as an agent of the Faunus Foundation, protecting the world from cosmic horrors. Set in 1921, the game combines detective work with Lovecraftian eleme...

Part interactive thriller, part newsroom simulator, The President is Missing (1988, DOS) casts you as an investigative journalist trying to unravel a political conspiracy before ev...

Long before indie developers made “roguelike” a buzzword, someone decided to fuse Doom with permadeath and ASCII graphics. The result: Doom: The Roguelike (2005). On pa...

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...

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...

Udoiana Raunes is one of those late-DOS curiosities that feels like it escaped from a developer’s hard drive by accident. It presents itself as a fantasy adventure, but quick...

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,...

Crossfire is what happens when you throw a tank into a maze, give it infinite ammo, and tell it to go wild. Released in 1982, it’s all about twitch reflexes and precise shoot...

Long before fan-made clones flooded the internet, there was David's Kong (1984). It’s a straight-up Donkey Kong knockoff, but with enough quirks to make you smile. The premis...

Think of Aldo's Assault as what happens when Mario forgets his plumber license and joins a bootleg army. This 1991 DOS gem throws you into a side-scrolling frenzy of ladders, barre...

Exterminator, released in 1990, is one of those games that knows exactly what it wants to do and wastes no time doing it. You’re thrown into a top-down action scenario with a...

Released in 1983, Sea Dragon turns underwater navigation into an exercise in patience and joystick control. You pilot a submarine through caves filled with mines, enemies, and clau...

Imagine being a bouncing ball in a series of floating sky islands full of monsters, traps, and puzzles. Welcome to Cloud Kingdoms, where the laws of physics politely take a backsea...