abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

Incursion is a modern love letter to classic tactical RPGs, clearly inspired by tabletop rulesets and games like early Fallout. It throws you into a turn-based world where position...

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...

Released in 1994, Lords of the Realm is medieval strategy with a distinctly hands-on attitude. This isn’t just about moving armies; it’s about managing land, people, an...

Tera: La Cité des Crânes is a moody adventure that leans heavily on atmosphere and mystery. The world feels strange and slightly unsettling, with puzzles that require patience an...

Postman Pat 3: To the Rescue is a 1992 DOS adventure game based on the popular British children's character. Players help Postman Pat complete various tasks, delivering items and s...

Guerrilla War wastes no time pretending to be subtle. You run upward, you shoot everything that moves, and occasionally you rescue a hostage who seems oddly calm about the whole si...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens&mdash...

No Exit is a 1990 fighting game with a title that sounds like a warning, which is probably appropriate because the player is about to enter a series of increasingly violent battles...

Released in 1986, Dragons: A Challenge in Chivalry leaned more toward interactive storytelling than traditional gameplay. You weren’t just hacking at dragons—you were r...

Xenophage: Alien BloodSport is a fighting game that leans heavily into its bizarre premise, featuring grotesque alien combatants battling it out in brutal arenas. It is unapologeti...

Side Arms Hyper Dyne is a 1988 DOS shoot-'em-up adapted from Capcom's arcade game, putting players into a futuristic combat suit and sending them directly into a hostile alien batt...

Released in 1987, Lords of Conquest is strategy in its most distilled, no-nonsense form. This is a game that drops you onto a map, hands you control of armies, and essentially says...

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...

Mystery of the Mummy combines classic adventure gaming with ancient Egyptian mysteries, inviting players to explore a world of tombs, secrets, and puzzles that have presumably been...

Mystical is an atmospheric adventure that blends exploration, fantasy, and puzzle solving into a journey through a world filled with strange locations and mysterious events. Player...

Welcome to Border Zone (1987, DOS), where the Cold War is hot and your only weapon is your brain (and maybe a good map). This text-based espionage thriller from Infocom combines sp...

The Invaders is a straightforward arcade-style shooter built around one of gaming's oldest and most reliable ideas: things are flying toward you, so shoot them before they become y...

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 ...

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 ...

More illustrations, more intrigue, more doom. The Crystal of Doom continues the hybrid of comic-style storytelling and light role-playing with just enough choices to make you feel ...

Archipelagos is like a fever dream after watching too much Myst. You’re dropped onto strange, floating islands inhabited by stone monoliths and evil terrain-infecting sludge....

Think of Bass Tour (1992) as the road trip version of virtual fishing. More simulation than arcade, it lets you travel, pick locations, study conditions, and obsess over bait types...

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...

Xiphos is a space shooter that mixes straightforward mechanics with a slightly more tactical approach, encouraging players to think as well as react. It is not overly complex, but ...

You probably didn’t know you needed a game about a rapping, music-spinning dragon, but DJ Puff fills that oddly specific void. Released in 1993 for DOS, this platformer featu...

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 ...

Striker 95 takes the football formula into the middle of the 1990s, with more detailed presentation and a stronger emphasis on competitive matches. The game offers the usual ingred...

Dungeon Explorer takes the term “dungeon” very seriously—there’s a lot of it, and not much else. Released in 1990, this top-down adventure is part RPG, part...