abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

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...

Roller Coaster Rumbler is a 1989 DOS game built around the wonderfully simple idea of causing trouble in a theme-park roller coaster environment. Players must navigate the ride and...

Back in 1986, when most PC users were still figuring out floppy disks, along came Dr. Ruth Computer Game of Good Sex, a title that promised to educate while entertaining. Imagine t...

Released in 1990 for DOS, Soviet is a cold war thriller that plays out like an interactive spy novel. You’re an American journalist turned reluctant agent, caught in a tangle...

Dominium (1992) is an ambitious mix of real-time strategy and empire management, though perhaps “ambitious” is just another word for “slightly overwhelming.&rdquo...

Building upon the original formula, Kingdom of Kroz 2 introduces fresh levels, new challenges, and even more opportunities to question every decision you make. Exploration remains ...

Rawcopy is a straightforward DOS utility designed around copying data, with the sort of focused functionality that was common among command-line tools of the period. Rather than at...

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...

Eight Ball Deluxe is digital pinball with a swagger, the kind that wears mirrored sunglasses indoors and dares you to beat its high score. Based on the famous Bally table, this 199...

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....

Romantic Encounters at the Dome is a 1988 DOS title with a decidedly unusual focus, placing romance and social interaction at the center of its gameplay. Rather than commanding arm...

Guardians is a science-fiction action game built around the familiar idea that humanity needs someone brave enough to deal with an assortment of hostile forces. The player explores...

Released in 1984 for DOS, Farenheit 451 is one of those early adventure games that feels like it’s constantly judging your typing skills. Loosely inspired by Bradbury’s...

Netherworld is a 1990 action game that sends the player into a strange, hostile world filled with enemies, obstacles, and the sort of atmosphere that suggests the local tourism boa...

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 ...

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...

Think Top Gun but with less Tom Cruise and more pixelated explosions. Chopper Duel pits you against a friend (or the AI) in one-on-one rotorcraft carnage. It’s fast, twitchy,...

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...

Objection! is a 1992 DOS game built around the dramatic world of courtroom arguments, legal reasoning, and the thrilling possibility that one badly chosen sentence can ruin your en...

Released in 1982, Novatron is one of those early DOS titles that tried to imagine the future using about twelve pixels and a prayer. It’s an arcade-style shooter that borrows...

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...

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...

The Third Courier is a Cold War thriller built around espionage, investigation and the decidedly uncomfortable business of trying to uncover a secret before someone eliminates you....

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...

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, ...

Originally designed by Cyan, Manhole offers an experience closer to an interactive storybook than a conventional adventure game. Players explore whimsical locations by clicking thr...

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...

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...

Stunt Island is part flight simulator, part movie-making playground, and part excuse to crash aircraft repeatedly in the name of entertainment. You take control of various planes a...