abandonware games sorted by release date

With FIFA Soccer 97, EA decided indoor soccer was exactly what the world had been waiting for, and honestly, they weren’t entirely wrong. The pace is frantic, the rebounds ar...

Released in 1996 for DOS, this beast is not a new game so much as an ultra-hard remix of Doom II, crafted by level designers who apparently thought “too much ammo” was ...

Free Enterprise from 1996 is business simulation with a distinctly ’90s sense of ambition. You’re tasked with building and managing a corporate empire, juggling finance...

With a name like Genocide (1996), you know you’re not in for a lighthearted romp. This DOS platformer is dark, moody, and filled with enemies that seem genetically engineered...

Gloriana sails into the realm of naval strategy with a focus on historical battles and tactical maneuvering. Ships move with a deliberate pace, and positioning is everything, turni...

Great Naval Battles vol. 5: Demise of the Dreadnoughts 1914-18 is an abandoned naval simulation game, developed for DOS only by Divide by zero and released by SSI Strategic Simulat...

The 1996 Hamurabi remake takes one of the oldest strategy concepts in gaming and gives it a modest DOS-era facelift. At its core, it’s still about managing resources, feeding...

Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures is a charmingly odd experiment that shrinks globe-trotting archaeology into bite-sized missions designed for quick play sessions. Viewed fr...

Inner Worlds is the kind of side-scroller that sneaks up on you. At first, it’s a fantasy action-platformer—monsters, dungeons, the usual—but then you discover th...

Iron Blood (1996, DOS) is the kind of fighting game that makes you wonder if robots really need martial arts lessons. The story is wafer-thin—something about futuristic warri...

You don’t need a joystick the size of a tree to enjoy Konami’s Ping Pong (1996, DOS). Simple, fast, and maddeningly addictive, this digital table tennis game nails the ...

If Krazy Ivan (1996, Windows XP) had a motto, it’d be “Blow it up first, ask later.” You pilot a massive mech across post-apocalyptic battlefields, obliterating a...

By 1996, Legend of the Silver Talisman delivered a more traditional RPG adventure, though with a decidedly old-school feel. It’s a game that doesn’t bother holding your...

Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. It is the sixth installment in the Leisure Suit Larry series and was rel...

Lords of the Realm II is a medieval-themed real-time strategy (RTS) and turn-based strategy game developed by Impressions Games and published by Sierra On-Line. Released in 1996, i...

Back in 1996, Macromedia Flash Player was like that mysterious new kid at school who suddenly knew how to juggle, ride a unicycle, and solve a Rubik’s Cube—all at the s...

Master of Orion II is a 4X turn-based sci-fi strategy game set in space. Master of Orion 2 gives the player an empire to run by controlling food and production, managing economy an...

MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries is a standalone expansion to MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, released in 1996 by Activision. Part of the larger BattleTech universe, the game puts pl...