abandonware games sorted by popularity

Nanotank is a 1993 Windows 3.x strategy game that takes the concept of armored warfare and shrinks it down to a delightfully miniature scale. Instead of commanding enormous armies ...

In Gazza 2, the legendary English footballer Paul Gascoigne lends his name to a soccer game that manages to be as unpredictable as his career. Released in 1991, it’s a curiou...

PC*Bert is a 1997 DOS puzzle game that clearly takes inspiration from classic arcade ideas while adding its own personality. Players guide a character through challenging levels fi...

A Dudley Dilemma (1988) sounds like the title of a children’s book, but it’s actually a very British text adventure for DOS where the stakes are politely quirky and mil...

Crazy Cars: Hit the Road is a deliberately old-fashioned arcade racing game that wastes very little time explaining itself. You get a car, a road, and plenty of opportunities to di...

Sounds ominous, right? In Choose an Enemy, you’re given exactly that: a list of foes to annihilate in turn-based combat. It’s like a dinner menu, but instead of appetiz...

Grand Prix is one of those games that tries to bottle the thrill of Formula racing and pour it into a DOS machine that wheezes like an overworked engine. In Grand Prix, you get a s...

Few games embrace confusion quite as enthusiastically as M Labyrinth. Released in 1993, it throws players into a maze that seems to have been designed by someone who firmly believe...

Loopz, released in 1990, is the kind of puzzle game that looks innocent for about five seconds before it starts humbling you. The concept is simple: connect the pieces, form loops,...

Ford Simulator 5 (1994, DOS) arrives with increased confidence, as though the series has fully embraced its unusual identity. The graphics are cleaner, the environments broader, an...

Silly Master Blaster is a 1985 DOS action game whose title gives a fairly accurate warning about the level of seriousness involved. The game combines shooting and arcade-style chal...

MegaRace 2 builds on the original's futuristic racing formula while pushing the presentation even further. The game offers a collection of wild tracks, armed vehicles, aggressive o...

Modem Wars is an early strategy game that feels almost prophetic today, especially because it was designed around competitive play long before online gaming became commonplace. Pla...

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...

Published in 1989, Le Fetiche Maya invites players into an adventure filled with ancient mysteries, hidden treasures, and dangerous locations inspired by Mesoamerican legends. Expl...

Ghost Master is a strategy and simulation game developed by Sick Puppies and published by Empire Interactive. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows in 2003 and later por...

Paganitzu is a 1991 puzzle-platform adventure starring explorer Alabama Smith, whose archaeological expeditions have an unfortunate tendency to involve deadly temples and elaborate...

Golden Eagle is a platformer that feels like it’s constantly testing your reflexes—and your patience. You navigate traps, enemies, and environmental hazards in a quest ...

Knight Lore remake revisits one of the most recognizable British home-computer adventures with a more modern presentation. The original Knight Lore was famous for its isometric roo...

Xenopods offers a quirky take on space exploration, combining elements of strategy and action in a way that feels both unusual and oddly charming. You control small pods navigating...

Released in 1984, Lords of Midnight is one of those rare games that feels more like a living legend than a product. Blending strategy, role-playing, and a kind of emergent storytel...

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...

Dangerous Streets is a fighting game that clearly wanted to be the next Street Fighter—and instead became a cult oddity. The character roster is bizarre, the animations oddly...

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...

ResidualVM is an open-source game engine project created to run certain classic adventure games on modern computers by replacing their original executable code with a compatible en...

Super Stardust is a fast-paced space shooter that throws the player into a colorful galaxy filled with enemies, asteroids, power-ups, and the sort of screen activity that makes bli...

Seastalker is a 1984 DOS interactive adventure from the early era of computer storytelling, placing players aboard an advanced submarine as they investigate an underwater mystery. ...

Willow is a fantasy action adventure inspired by the world of the classic film, placing the player in a magical landscape filled with enemies, exploration, and the usual assortment...

Educational games often struggle to balance learning with entertainment, but Mario is Missing! takes an unusual approach by sending Luigi around the world to rescue his famous brot...

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...