abandonware games sorted by rating

Shogun is a 1986 DOS strategy game inspired by feudal Japan, giving players the chance to manage armies, territories, alliances, and political ambitions in a period where diplomacy...

Sid Meier's CivNet takes the classic Civilization formula and adds something that can make even the most peaceful empire suddenly become dangerous: other human players. Released in...

Meteor Mission is a classic space shooter built around a simple but timeless objective: defend yourself against relentless waves of incoming threats and keep firing until the unive...

Released in 1988 for DOS, this game lets you drive monster trucks across deserts, swamps, and icy wastelands with all the grace of a drunken forklift. It’s less about speed a...

Pack-Man is a 1983 clone of the famous maze classic, delivering familiar arcade excitement with its own interpretation of the legendary formula. Players collect dots, avoid determi...

Grand Slam Bridge is exactly what it says on the tin, which is both comforting and slightly intimidating if you are not already fluent in the mysterious language of card games. In ...

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...

By the time Premier Manager 3 rolled around, the series had cemented its reputation as the thinking fan’s football fix. Released in 1994, it refined the formula once again, o...

Scorched 3D is a free and open-source artillery game that serves as a modern adaptation of the classic MS-DOS game Scorched Earth. Developed by Gavin Camp, it was first released in...

Solar Hockey League is a 1992 DOS sports game that takes the basic idea of hockey and sends it into a futuristic setting. Instead of conventional ice rinks, players compete in a sc...

Space Miner is a 1983 DOS game built around the classic science-fiction fantasy of heading into space and extracting valuable resources. The player pilots a spacecraft through dang...

Vaxine is a first-person shooter with a wonderfully strange premise: you are flying through the interior of a human body, blasting viruses and other microscopic nasties before they...

Visions of the Aftermath: The Boomtown presents a bleak vision of survival in a world that has already suffered the unpleasant consequences of civilization going spectacularly wron...

Dungeon of Shalan is one of those games that greets you with the words “You awaken in a dark room” and then proceeds to make that darkness your entire reality. Released...

Encounter drops you into a minimalist sci-fi scenario and wastes no time explaining itself. You’re alone, surrounded by enemies, and expected to survive using quick reflexes ...

Murder in the Atlantic takes the classic locked-room mystery and places it aboard a luxury ocean liner, where a murder turns an elegant voyage into an investigation filled with sus...

This game is either a delightful brain teaser or a slow descent into madness, depending on how patient you are. 15x15 Picture Puzzle gives you a scrambled mess of tiny square tiles...

Ah, the late '90s: when cars exploded for no reason and acronyms made everything cooler. Axelerator: Have a N.I.C.E. day! is a 1997 Windows racer that asks, “What if racing w...

Carriers at War is a detailed naval strategy game focused on aircraft carriers and the brutal arithmetic of Pacific warfare. Players command fleets, plan operations, launch aircraf...

Cyrus is a chess program that doesn’t just play well—it plays with personality. The AI adjusts to your skill level, offering a challenge whether you’re a beginner...

Dark, moody, and surprisingly mature, Manhattan Missions takes the Turtles into gritty territory. The city is under siege, Shredder’s back, and the atmosphere feels more Batm...

The Typing of the Dead takes the familiar zombie-shooting formula and replaces the ammunition with something far more terrifying: a keyboard. Instead of aiming weapons, players typ...

Thunderblade puts you in control of a heavily armed helicopter and wastes very little time explaining why the neighborhood suddenly needs several hundred explosions. The action is ...

Ever wanted to fight fire with... even more fire? Brimstone tosses you into a magical mess of spells, dungeons, and monsters who woke up on the wrong side of the crypt. It’s ...

Pitstop 2 is a 1984 racing game that focuses on endurance driving, strategy, and the surprisingly important task of maintaining a vehicle during competition. Players race around tr...

The all new Family Feud brings the classic TV game show into your home, complete with survey questions and the eternal struggle to guess what other people are thinking. It’s simp...

Released in 1991, Free D.C.! is one of those games that feels like a time capsule of early PC experimentation. It mixes political satire with arcade-style action, letting you fight...

Black Tiger is a side-scrolling action game packed with monsters, treasure and enough medieval violence to make a quiet afternoon in the countryside seem considerably less attracti...

In Blackstar: Agent of Justice (1995), you play a noir-style detective in a trench coat so dramatic it probably has its own union. Set in a dark, crime-ridden city where everyone t...

EducAtlas 1993 is an educational geography program designed to turn the computer into a digital atlas. During the early 1990s, this was an appealing idea: instead of searching thro...