abandonware games sorted by popularity

So you think you're ready to storm Normandy? Think again. 101: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy drops you into the chaos of World War II with all the grace of a paratrooper landin...

Ascendancy is the friendlier, trippier cousin of Master of Orion. It’s 4X strategy in space, with bizarre alien races, psychedelic menus, and a soundtrack that sounds like it...

Pirates! Gold is an open world game designed by Paul Murphy, developed and released by MicroProse Software in 1993 for DOS, Windows 3.x, Mac and also Sega Genesis and Amiga CD32.&n...

Ah yes, the game that crawled so Ultima could run. Akalabeth is a wireframe dungeon crawl where you descend into monster-infested labyrinths with the elegance of a lost spreadsheet...

Ski or Die is a winter sports-themed video game that was originally released in 1990 for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The game was developed by...

Elite isn’t just a game; it’s a lifestyle choice. This 1987 DOS version throws you into a vast, uncaring galaxy and says, “Good luck.” There’s trading...

Before Worms made artillery games cute, Bang! Bang! let you and a friend lob cartoonish shells at each other using nothing but angles, wind speed, and pure spite. It's a math lesso...

Test Drive is a racing game developed by Distinctive Software and released by Accolade in 1987 for multiple platforms, including DOS, Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, and Commodore 64. I...

Crazy Cars 2 upgrades the formula with a plot about crooked cops and stolen Ferraris. You’ll speed across vast American highways, dodging patrol cars that spawn with supernat...

Released in 1996 for DOS, this beast is not a new game so much as an ultra-hard remix of Doom II, crafted by level designers who apparently thought “too much ammo” was ...

Xenon 2: Megablast is a classic shoot'em up developed by Bitmap Brothers and released by Image Works in 1990 for DOS and for a plethora of other systems. Xenon was good, Xenon 2 wa...

Yes, Astrotit (1987) is really the name, and no, it’s not what you think — though it does feel like it was named by a bored teenager. This side-scrolling shooter puts y...

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers is an abandoned fantasy top-down DOS RPG game set in the The Lord of the Rings universe. The Lord of the Rings II wa...

Legends of Valour (1992) was one of those ambitious games that aimed to create a living, breathing fantasy city—and partially succeeded. Set in the sprawling metropolis of Mi...

The original Command & Conquer (1995, DOS) is the game that launched a thousand LAN parties. It’s gritty, fast-paced RTS warfare with full-motion video cutscenes so chees...

Planetfall is an interactive fiction sci-fie game released in 1983 by Infocom, written by Steve Meretzky. It is often considered one of Infocom's best titles. You play as a lo...

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...

One Must Fall: 2097 is a fighting game released in 1994 by Epic MegaGames. Set in a futuristic world, the game features giant humanoid robots known as HARs (Human-Assisted Robots) ...

By Ultima 3, the series had discovered the magic of party-based adventuring. No longer a lonely trek, now you command a ragtag group of heroes who bicker only in your imagination. ...

Black & White (2001) is what happens when a god game gets a bit too literal. You play as a deity, complete with a giant hand, an enormous ego, and a giant pet that poops on vil...

Deluxe Paint, often abbreviated as DPaint, was a popular bitmap graphics editor and animation software package. It was developed by Electronic Arts (EA) and released in the mid-198...

Lemmings was one of the most iconic puzzle games ever made. It was also one of the most inventive. The idea behind those tiny furred punk suicidal rodents is truly a stroke of geni...