abandonware games sorted by popularity

A gloriously grimy cyberpunk romp, Ranx: The Video Game drops you in a future where technology, attitude, and questionable hygiene coexist in uneasy harmony. Based on the French co...

King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table blends medieval legend with strategy and role-playing, inviting players to gather brave knights while protecting Camelot from all manner of...

In Black Gold (1989), you're in the cutthroat world of oil barons. It’s like Dallas, but with more charts and fewer cowboy hats. You build rigs, negotiate deals, and try to o...

Aliants: The Desperate Battle For Earth! is a science-fiction strategy game built around the suitably alarming idea that humanity has run out of time and extraterrestrial enemies a...

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...

IBM Fixed Disk Organizer is exactly the sort of utilitarian software that reveals how seriously early PC users had to take their storage. Released in 1983, it was designed to help ...

Deluxe Paint 1 is one of the landmark graphics programs of the early personal-computer era, particularly associated with the Amiga before its tools and ideas found wider influence....

Based on Piers Anthony’s pun-filled fantasy world, Companions of Xanth is like walking into a joke book that got lost in a spellbook. You play a guy from the "real world" suc...

Indenture is a small, relatively obscure DOS adventure that thrives on mood rather than complexity. Set in a bleak, oppressive world, it uses minimalistic visuals and text-driven s...

Wizard's Crown is a classic fantasy role-playing game that gives players a party of adventurers, a dangerous world, and a generous supply of reasons to regret entering the nearest ...

Warriors of Legend is an action-oriented fantasy adventure that throws the player into a world of combat, exploration, and heroic trouble. Released in 1993, it offers the familiar ...

Miniature golf is already a whimsical sport, but Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf decides Earth simply isn’t strange enough. Released in 1995, this quirky DOS game sends...

Beats of Rage is what happens when fans of Streets of Rage decide to stop waiting for Sega and just build their own game—with a side of King of Fighters for flavor. This DOS ...

Redhook's Revenge is a 1993 DOS adventure game built around exploration, danger, and a pirate-flavored setting. Players take part in a swashbuckling journey filled with mysterious ...

X-COM: Alliance is one of those legendary “what could have been” titles, a fascinating ghost in gaming history rather than a fully realized experience. Originally envisioned as...

By 1999, Liero had become a cult favorite thanks to its frantic real-time battles between heavily armed worms. Unlike turn-based competitors, the action never pauses, creating chao...

DBGL is a free and open-source frontend for DOSBox available for many platforms, developed in Java.

Skifree is an adorable downhill romp… at least until the monster shows up. You start by zipping peacefully through flags and jumps, enjoying the zen simplicity of early Wind...

Evolution is an early experiment in simulating progress, and it wears its ambition proudly. The game attempts to model development and change over time, often in abstract ways that...

If you’ve ever wanted to command armies older than your great-great-great-grandparents, Encyclopedia of War: Ancient Battles is your time machine with a keyboard. Released in...

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...

Solidarnosc is a 1991 DOS game built around the Polish political and social movement that became one of the defining forces in the country's modern history. Rather than offering co...

When Strider (1989, DOS) hit PCs, gamers suddenly felt like ninjas who’d been dropped into a Cold War fever dream. You play as Hiryu, a futuristic assassin slicing through me...

Commando Enhanced revisits the classic commando-style action formula with a more polished presentation and the same basic ingredients: dangerous missions, hostile soldiers, weapons...

Crazy Nick’s Roger Wilco’s Spaced Out Games Pack hands the Space Quest janitor a stack of silly mini-games to keep him from accidentally saving the galaxy again. Expect...

Slam! is a 1993 Windows 3.x game built around fast arcade-style action and competitive play. Its simple presentation reflects the period, but the gameplay aims to provide immediate...

Joe Blade is a classic arcade-style action game in which the titular hero has apparently decided that one man is sufficient to deal with an entire collection of dangerous criminals...

Loopz, released in 1990, is the kind of puzzle game that looks innocent for about five seconds before it starts humbling you. The concept is simple: connect the pieces, form loops,...

Oubliette is a 1983 role-playing game and an important early example of the dungeon-crawling tradition that would influence generations of computer RPGs. Players create characters,...

Part RTS, part simulation, Carrier Command was ahead of its time in the same way that an aircraft carrier is ahead of a canoe. You control a futuristic warship, launch aircraft and...