abandonware games sorted by popularity

In Crime and Punishment, you’re not the criminal—you’re the detective, judge, and executioner rolled into one. Presented as a legal simulation, it tasks you with ...

Operation Getafix (1989) is what happens when you turn a beloved comic series into a game with the precision of a wild boar wearing gloves. You play as Asterix on a quest to help G...

In the neon-lit corridors of cyberspace, you're a "decker," infiltrating corporate mainframes like a digital ninja. Released in 2002, this roguelike RPG offers a tile-based cyberpu...

Indenture is a small, relatively obscure DOS adventure that thrives on mood rather than complexity. Set in a bleak, oppressive world, it uses minimalistic visuals and text-driven s...

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...

Shamus is a maze action game developed by William Mataga and published by Synapse Software in 1982. The game became popular on various home computer platforms of the early 1980s. I...

Isle of the Dead is a first-person horror shooter that combines exploration, combat, and a wonderfully grim island setting. You find yourself surrounded by hostile creatures and my...

Volleyball Simulator does exactly what its title promises, although anyone expecting a modern sports game with photorealistic athletes should probably adjust their expectations imm...

In Nomad, you’re a space pilot with a ship full of bad decisions and a galaxy’s worth of trouble. The game throws you into a vast star map to explore, trade, and occasi...

Global Conquest is strategy boiled down to its essentials, offering a streamlined take on world domination that’s easy to pick up but harder to master. You’ll move armi...

Independence War takes space combat seriously, almost stubbornly so. Instead of arcade-style dogfights, it presents a Newtonian flight model where momentum, inertia, and positionin...

Beyond the Black Hole promises an interstellar voyage into mystery—and delivers... a disorienting 3D shooter that kind of feels like flying a cardboard spaceship through a ka...

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a cop who drifts around corners at 90 mph in a convertible, Cisco Heat is your kind of chaos. This arcade racer puts you in the shoes of a law...

Zyclunt is a side-scrolling action game developed and published by Phantagram in 1995. The game is set in a dystopian future where incurable diseases and a rise in criminal activit...

Canton: An Atlas Pathfinder Adventure is an unusual historical exploration game built around geography, navigation, and discovery rather than traditional combat. Set in an imagined...

Forbidden Castle (1985, DOS) is a side-scrolling expedition into pixelated peril, where every corridor seems to hide a trap designed by someone with a mischievous streak. You explo...

Armada 2525 is what happens when a spreadsheet decides it wants to conquer the galaxy. This is classic 4X strategy with all the bells, whistles, and menus your early '90s heart cou...

Austerlitz recreates one of Napoleon's most famous victories as a historical strategy game, putting the player in the middle of the Battle of Austerlitz. The focus is firmly on bat...

Ever wanted to combine your love for trivia with Old Testament knowledge and 256-color DOS graphics? Bible Builder is here to test your biblical memory one verse at a time. It's li...

WWF in Your House turns professional wrestling into a compact arcade-style spectacle, drawing on the flashy presentation and larger-than-life personalities of the WWF era. Matches ...

Released in 1990, LineWars delivers straightforward strategic action where players command futuristic forces across minimalist battlefields. Despite its simple presentation, the ga...

Before rhythm games took over, there was Moonwalker (1989), where you play as none other than Michael Jackson himself, saving kidnapped kids by dancing enemies into submission. Yes...

Operation Combat II: By Land, Sea & Air is a 1993 military strategy game that takes the ambitious approach of covering warfare across multiple environments. Players must think abou...

Math Circus (1993) is proof that educational games in the DOS era were either unbearably boring or secretly brilliant — and this one leans heavily toward the second category....

Space Quest 1: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter is the adventure that introduced Roger Wilco, a janitor who somehow manages to become one of science fiction gaming's most lovabl...

Evets is a puzzle game that proves simplicity can be deceptive. With minimal graphics and a straightforward premise, it invites you in gently before revealing its true complexity. ...

Iznogoud from 1987 adapts the famous comic into an adventure-platform hybrid filled with traps, puzzles, and cartoon mischief. Its humor carries much of the charm, while the gamepl...

There’s a certain dark humor baked into Global Thermo War, a game that tackles nuclear conflict with a mix of strategy and unsettling realism. It’s not exactly cheerful...

At first glance Mad Mix resembles a familiar maze chase, but it quickly reveals several wonderfully eccentric twists. Instead of relying solely on quick movement, players can trans...

ELIZA, created in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, was one of the first computer programs to simulate human conversation. Designed as a natural language processing demons...