abandonware games sorted by popularity

Profezia is a 1991 DOS adventure game that combines fantasy themes, exploration, and puzzle-solving into a mysterious journey. Players enter a world filled with secrets, strange ch...

Ghost Master is a strategy and simulation game developed by Sick Puppies and published by Empire Interactive. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows in 2003 and later por...

Vampyr: Talisman of Invocation is an obscure fantasy adventure built around exploration, combat, and the hunt for magical objects. The setting has all the ingredients you might exp...

Flying at incredible speed sounds glamorous until you realize mountains have absolutely no intention of moving out of the way. Mach 3 delivers fast-paced action by placing players ...

Mission Critical delivers a tense science fiction adventure centered on survival, exploration, and a desperate struggle aboard a damaged spacecraft. Players must investigate their ...

Arachne is a graphical web browser for DOS. Arachne was developed by Michal Polák and released in the early 1990s as a text-mode web browser with limited graphical capabilit...

Space 1889 (1990, DOS) is steampunk before steampunk was cool. Based on the tabletop RPG, it sends you to an alternate Victorian era where the British Empire has expanded — t...

Hollywood Squares brings the classic TV game show to your computer, complete with trivia questions and a grid of personalities who may or may not be telling the truth. Released in ...

Part action-RPG, part body-horror fairy tale, Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall (1995) is the game where you slowly transform into an insect and, somehow, that’s not even the...

International Ninja Rabbits sounds like a fever dream, and in many ways it plays like one too. Released in 1991, this platformer combines martial arts, oversized vegetables, and he...

Manic Miner remake faithfully revives one of the most influential platform games ever created while adapting it for a newer generation of PC players. Precision remains absolutely e...

Dragon World (1984) might sound like the precursor to a sprawling epic RPG, but it’s actually more of a board-game-style fantasy experience. Less “slay the dragon with ...

The Last Mission is a compact science-fiction action game in which survival depends on flying through dangerous environments, destroying hostile machines, and keeping your spacecra...

In Chicago 90, you either play as the cops or the crooks in a top-down, crime-infested, vaguely Windy City-esque setting. Think of it as a proto-GTA with more sirens and fewer mora...

La Grande Armée (1991) returns to Napoleonic warfare, but with a sharper focus on military tactics than imperial administration. This strategy game puts you in charge of mas...

Welcome to the skies of World War II, where dogfights are fast, fuel is low, and you probably forgot to raise your landing gear. Battlehawks 1942 (1988) is a flight sim with just e...

SSN-21 Seawolf is a 1994 submarine simulation that puts players in command of one of the most advanced fictionalized attack submarines of its era. The game focuses on navigation, s...

Colosso Secret (1997, DOS) is the moody prequel/sequel/parallel universe to Colosso Revenge, where secrets abound and subtlety is tossed out the window. Imagine Indiana Jones in a ...

Visual Basic 3 (VB3) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) released by Microsoft in 1993. It is part of the Visual Basic (VB) series, which is know...

Nanotank is a 1993 Windows 3.x strategy game that takes the concept of armored warfare and shrinks it down to a delightfully miniature scale. Instead of commanding enormous armies ...

Quarky & Quaysoo's Turbo Science is a 1992 educational game that tries to make science more entertaining by adding colorful characters, experiments, and the sort of playful present...

Guardians: Agents of Justice puts the player in the role of a superhero-style operative tasked with dealing with threats that are considerably less interested in obeying the law. T...

Unreal by Ordilogic, released in 1991, is not the one most people think of, and that alone makes it interesting. It’s an action-adventure experience that blends exploration with ...

Dragon Lord (1990) is what happens when you let a fantasy novelist design a strategy game. You’re a would-be sorcerer trying to raise dragons, manage villages, and conquer la...

Creatures Village trades explosions for adorable AI pets in a colorful sandbox world. You raise, teach, and care for Norns—genetically simulated cuties with personalities as ...

European Championship 1992 captures football in a raw, almost scrappy form. This isn’t about realism or presentation; it’s about getting the ball forward and hoping for...

CHAMP Invaders takes the classic alien-shooting formula and gives it the straightforward treatment you would expect from a retro arcade homage. Rows of hostile creatures advance to...

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...

Superstar Ice Hockey brings the rough-and-tumble world of hockey to the computer with a distinctly old-school approach. Released in 1987, it focuses on the essentials: skating, pas...

QBasic 1.1 is Microsoft's approachable programming environment for DOS and one of the easiest ways an entire generation learned that computers could be told exactly what to do. It ...