Abandonware simulation games sorted by release date

In Search and Destroy (1988), you’re a helicopter pilot with one job: blow things up. It’s as straightforward as the title suggests, yet endlessly satisfying. With top-...

Part interactive thriller, part newsroom simulator, The President is Missing (1988, DOS) casts you as an investigative journalist trying to unravel a political conspiracy before ev...

Visions of the Aftermath: The Boomtown is an abandoned simulation game with role-playing elements developed by Mindscape and released in 1988 exclusively for DOS. Visions of the Af...

You thought running a government was hard? Try doing it with a smug civil servant and a budget crisis every five minutes. In Yes, Prime Minister, you play as Jim Hacker, the PM him...

Yuppi's Revenge is what happens when ‘80s satire meets office rage. You’re a disgruntled ex-yuppie on a rampage through the corporate world—armed with a golf club...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is a geopolitical strategy game developed by Chris Crawford and released in 1985. It is considered a classic in the genre of political and strate...

In Black Gold (1989), you're in the cutthroat world of oil barons. It’s like Dallas, but with more charts and fewer cowboy hats. You build rigs, negotiate deals, and try to o...

Forget piracy—China Sea Trader makes hauling porcelain and spices across 19th-century Asia feel like a cutthroat business. It’s part economic sim, part geography lesson...

Lost Dutchman Mine (1989, DOS) is what happens when you mix an old western, an adventure game, and a survival simulator — and somehow it works. You’re a prospector with...

Search for the Titanic (1989) proves that even shipwreck hunting can be turned into a spreadsheet simulator. You manage budgets, hire crews, buy sonar equipment, and hope your sear...

SimCity (or SimCity Classic) is a popular city building simulation in which you, the mayor of a city, have to build a metropolis from the ground up. You can build police and fire d...

Environmental doom simulator? Check. Grim statistics? Double check. Balance of the Planet lets you tinker with carbon emissions, wildlife extinction, and deforestation until you ei...

Step into the gray, morally ambiguous world of corporate domination with Big Business. It’s Monopoly with fewer dice and more spreadsheets. Crush your competitors, manipulate...

Conflict is a turn-based war game where you get to play Commander-in-Chief and yell at your virtual generals when things go wrong (which they often do). It's part military sim, par...

Galleons of Glory is an abandoned educational historical simulation game developed and published by Broderbund in 1990. As Magellan your mission is to circumnavigate the world whil...

Life & Death 2: The Brain is a medical simulation video game developed and published by The Software Toolworks. It was released in 1990 for MS-DOS computers. In Life &...