abandonware games sorted by popularity

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space is a compact space strategy game built around exploration, discovery, trading, combat, and the delightful possibility that your carefully pla...

Sherman M4 is a 1989 DOS tank combat game centered on the famous American M4 Sherman tank. Players take control of the armored vehicle and face battlefield situations where positio...

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...

Released in 1992, La Colmena is a curious adaptation of Camilo José Cela’s novel, and it wears its literary roots proudly. Rather than focusing on traditional gameplay...

Westphaser is a fast-paced arcade shooter built around the familiar idea that a small spacecraft can somehow be expected to save the universe before lunch. The action takes place o...

P47 Thunderbolt is a 1990 side-scrolling shooter that puts players in the cockpit of the legendary Republic P-47 fighter aircraft during the Second World War. The mission is wonder...

Independence War 2: Edge Of Chaos refines its predecessor’s ideas into a more open-ended and player-driven experience. Trading, piracy, and exploration play a much larger rol...

Winter Supersports 1992 packages several cold-weather sporting events into a single collection, giving players the chance to compete without actually having to leave a warm room. T...

Ardentryst is the indie platformer that tried really hard to be a Metroidvania and kinda pulled it off. With anime-style art, RPG elements, and two playable characters, it’s ...

Floppy Frenzy embraces early-80s arcade spirit with gleeful abandon. The concept is simple, the pace relentless, and the margin for error thinner than a five-and-a-quarter disk. Yo...

Borderworld (1996, DOS) is a sci-fi RPG with big ideas, a tiny budget, and enough ambition to fuel a space shuttle. You’re thrown into a galaxy of politics, smuggling, and st...

FreeDOS Shell provides a command-line environment for FreeDOS, bringing the classic DOS experience to a later generation of computers. Its purpose is wonderfully straightforward: g...

Postal 2 takes the outrageous premise of its predecessor and expands it into a first-person sandbox where practically every ordinary errand can become an excuse for complete chaos....

Transworld is an old-school strategy title that offers a broad economic and organizational challenge, asking players to manage resources and make decisions within a simulated world...

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 ...

Math Cad 2.5 is a mathematical computing package from an era when serious technical calculations were increasingly moving from paper and calculators onto personal computers. It pro...

If you've ever stared at a camel and thought, "What if it shot lasers and had a personal grudge against humanity?", Attack of the Mutant Camels is the fever dream you've been waiti...

By 1994, LineWars 2 expanded upon the original with enhanced visuals, refined mechanics, and more varied tactical possibilities. Battles require players to adapt quickly while mana...

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...

HTML Tads is a development tool aimed at creating interactive fiction for the web, bringing the wonderfully old-fashioned pleasure of text adventures into a more modern environment...

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...

Microsoft COBOL is a classic programming environment for one of computing's most enduring business languages. COBOL was designed with practical data processing in mind, and Microso...

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...

Freddy Hardest introduces a hero whose name suggests subtlety was never on the table. This action-platformer throws you into alien-infested territory armed with a blaster and a stu...

Infocom really went off the rails with Nord and Bert, and bless them for it. This is a text adventure not about dragons or spaceships, but about puns. Yes, literal wordplay puzzles...

Winter Olympics: Lillehammer '94 offers a computer recreation of the famous Norwegian Winter Games, letting players tackle a collection of snowy events from the comfort of a keyboa...

Highway Patrol 2 puts you on the side of the law, chasing down offenders with determination and a bit of flair. The gameplay focuses on pursuit and control, asking you to balance s...

Pac Gal is a 1982 maze game inspired by the arcade phenomenon that had everyone running through corridors while being chased by colorful ghosts with questionable social skills. Pla...

If pro wrestling in the '80s had a fever dream after drinking too much neon paint, it would be called Bop'N Wrestle (1988, DOS). You play as Gorgeous Greg, who’s about as gor...

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 ...