abandonware games sorted by popularity

Rampart is what happens when someone mashes Tetris, tower defense, and medieval warfare into a single frantic loop. You rebuild crumbling castle walls using oddly shaped bricks, th...

Released in 1992, Barbie for DOS is what happens when someone asks, “What if pink could be a video game?” You play as Barbie on a quest to collect accessories and win K...

Pit Fighter is an arcade-style fighting game that was originally released in arcades in 1990 by Atari Games. It was later ported to various home gaming platforms, including DOS, th...

First Samurai is a classic action-platformer game originally released in 1991. The game was initially available on the Amiga and Atari ST, with later ports to the Commodore 64, DOS...

Before space marines were gritty and everything exploded in brown and grey, there was The Adventures of Captain Comic. This is early PC platforming in all its clunky, jumpy, 4-colo...

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is a software development tool that enables users to create point-and-click adventure games. It was originally created by Chris Jones and has been used ...

In Gauntlet, four brave souls (or just you with an overworked space bar) hack, slash, and gobble food like medieval Pac-Men. This 1986 dungeon crawler is basically a family reunion...

Forget Freddy’s razor glove for a second - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989) for DOS is terrifying in its own way. Mostly because of the controls. You play as a teen trying to...

Raiden is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game developed by Seibu Kaihatsu and first released in arcades in 1990 and later for many home computers and consoles. Raiden fol...

If Sorcerer Lord was about controlling armies, Sorcerian (1990, DOS) zooms in to the party level — a side-scrolling RPG that’s as odd as it is ambitious. You build a te...

Hard Nova is a sci-fi role-playing game (RPG) developed by Malibu Interactive and published by Electronic Arts. Released in 1990, it is available on platforms such as the DOS, Amig...

Ah, B.A.T. 2, the cyberpunk sequel that decided the future needed more trench coats, tech jargon, and inexplicably confusing interfaces. Released in 1992 for DOS, this game throws ...

Warlords 3: Reign of Heroes is an abandoned turn-based fantasy strategy game designed by Steve Fawkner, developed by SSG Strategic Studies Group and released by Red Orb Entertainme...

Escape from Hell asks the important question: what if escaping the underworld were less Dante and more sarcastic road trip? You descend into a demon-infested landscape armed with d...

Before Doom, there was Catacomb Abyss, where you throw fireballs down corridors at zombies who all apparently graduated from the same school of slow shuffling. It's a first-person ...

If spreadsheets are your love language, Capitalism 2 is pure romance. This brutally detailed simulation lets you create your own corporate empire from scratch—manufacturing, ...

Before “yippee-ki-yay” became gaming shorthand for chaos, Die Hard (1989) tried to capture the movie’s skyscraper shootout on DOS. You play as John McClane, trapp...

ARJ is a file compression utility and file format created by Robert K. Jung. The name "ARJ" stands for "Archived by Robert Jung." It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s a...

Battle Arena Toshinden was the first game in the Toshinden series and was originally released for the Sony PlayStation in 1995 and later for DOS. Battle Arena Toshinden introd...

Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0 (MSFS 4.0) is a flight simulation game released by Microsoft in 1989 for MS-DOS. It was the fourth major version of the Microsoft Flight Simulator se...

Domino’s Pizza once had a mascot called the Noid and someone decided he deserved his own video game. Avoid the Noid is about a heroic pizza delivery guy trying to bring food ...

Wolfenstein 3D is the first-person shooter that popularized the whole genre in the early 90s and is considered one of the greatest games ever made. Wolfenstein 3D was designed by J...

Wipeout is a popular racing video game known for its high-speed gameplay, anti-gravity racing vehicles, and electronic music soundtracks. Wipeout was developed and published b...

The classic bomb-defusing, platform-hopping, enemy-dodging chaos of Bomb Jack gets a fresh coat of pixels in this 2002 DOS remake. You’re still the tiny superhero hopping aro...

SimEarth is a simulation in which you can shape and mold a planet in almost every way you can imagine. In SimEarth our planet is simulated as a whole: life, climate, atmosphere are...

Ivan 'Iron Man' Stewart's Super Off Road is an abandoned diagonal-down off-road racing game developed by Leland and released by Virgin Interactive in 1990 for DOS, but also publish...

Dreamweb (1994) went full dark cyberpunk, and it didn’t pull its punches. You play Ryan, a man convinced he’s on a mission from mysterious forces to kill seven people w...