abandonware games sorted by popularity

Space MAX is a 1992 DOS space game that combines arcade-style shooting with a science-fiction setting and the familiar goal of surviving against increasingly dangerous enemies. Pla...

Fidelity Chessmaster 2100, released in 1989 for DOS, is chess with a very clear mission: beat you, patiently and without mercy. At the time, it was a serious achievement in compute...

Eagle's Rider is one of those early ’90s DOS games that feels slightly unhinged in the best possible way. You control a futuristic rider soaring through abstract landscapes, ...

Noctropolis feels like stepping into a fever dream of a comic book you read when you were twelve and maybe shouldn’t have. A surreal noir adventure with gothic heroes, femme ...

The Big Three is an unusual sports title centered on the three major American sports traditionally associated with the phrase: football, baseball, and basketball. Released in 1989,...

Knights of the Sky (1990, DOS) throws you into the cockpit of a biplane during WWI, where every dogfight is a dance of death and machine oil. With dynamic campaigns and customizabl...

Shadow Sorcerer is a fantasy role-playing adventure set in the Dragonlance universe, combining exploration, party management, combat, and a strong emphasis on narrative. Players co...

The Definitive Wargame Collection is aimed at players who regard a battlefield map as perfectly good entertainment for an entire evening. Rather than focusing on reflexes or flashy...

It’s Pac-Man, except it’s… not. Cap Man is a low-budget clone with just enough charm to avoid immediate deletion. You’ve got the dots, the ghosts, the powe...

Race Drivin' is a 1992 driving simulation that puts players behind the wheel of powerful sports cars and challenges them to master a collection of demanding tracks. The game emphas...

For those who got hopelessly addicted to the card game inside Final Fantasy VIII, Triple Triad Gold (2000) was like someone saying, “Here, now you can ruin your productivity ...

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...

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, ...

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 ...

Wolfsbane is a dark fantasy action game that sends the player into a hostile world filled with monsters, dangerous environments, and the usual medieval assortment of things that re...

Lynx is a text-based web browser that became famous for doing something that sounds almost impossible to younger computer users: browsing the World Wide Web without displaying pict...

Nectaris is a 1995 turn-based strategy game built around military operations, tactical movement, and the timeless pleasure of watching a carefully planned attack succeed. Players c...

Seastalker is a 1984 DOS interactive adventure from the early era of computer storytelling, placing players aboard an advanced submarine as they investigate an underwater mystery. ...

Released in 1993, Litil Divil follows the misadventures of Mutt, a rather clumsy little devil determined to prove himself in the underworld. The game combines platforming, puzzles,...

Clearly inspired by more famous platforming families, Giana Family doesn’t exactly hide its influences, but it manages to carve out its own identity anyway. The levels are pl...

WinFrotz is a Windows implementation of Frotz, an interpreter designed to run classic Infocom-style interactive fiction using Z-machine story files. Instead of providing one specif...

Gettysburg: Civil War Battles is a detailed strategy game centered on one of the most famous battles of the American Civil War. Rather than reducing the conflict to a simple exchan...

Canton: An Atlas Pathfinder Adventure is an unusual historical exploration game built around geography, navigation, and discovery rather than traditional combat. Set in an imagined...

Super 3-D Noah's Ark is an unusual first-person shooter that takes the familiar Wolfenstein-style formula and gives it an extremely unexpected biblical makeover. Instead of battlin...

In Black Crown (1995), you play as a prince with a very punchable name, trying to reclaim his rightful throne by solving puzzles and dying a lot. It's one of those DOS-era games wh...

Pinball Dreams is a 1993 digital pinball simulation that brought the excitement of arcade machines into the home computer era with impressive physics and colorful tables. Players l...

On The Ball is a soccer management game that puts the player on the touchline rather than directly on the pitch. Success depends on decisions involving tactics, lineups, transfers,...

Toobin turns the simple idea of floating downstream into an arcade challenge that is much less relaxing than it sounds. You control a character riding an inner tube through winding...

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...

Microsoft Diagnostics 3.01 is a troubleshooting utility designed to examine a DOS computer and provide useful information about its hardware and system configuration. In an era whe...