abandonware games sorted by popularity

If you’ve ever dreamed of running an airport without the hassle of jet fuel burns or screaming passengers, Airport Tycoon is your chance to live that high-flying fantasy. Rel...

StarCraft is Blizzard's landmark 1998 real-time strategy game, bringing three radically different factions into a fast, competitive struggle for control of the Koprulu Sector. The ...

A Night with Troi (1991) sounds like a fan fiction gone too far - and, well, that’s pretty much what it is. It’s a DOS-based “adventure” in the loosest sens...

SimCity 3000 continues Maxis's famous city-building series with a larger, more detailed simulation and considerably more ways for a mayor to make questionable decisions. Players de...

Angel 3 is that kind of DOS game where you sit down thinking "I'll give it five minutes" and three hours later you're still trying to figure out what just happened. Released in 199...

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...

Fast Tracker 2 is one of the defining music-tracking programs of the DOS era and a major piece of computer-music history. Rather than behaving like a traditional recording studio, ...

By 1989, SSI doubled down with Vol. 2, offering more battles, more maps, and the same demanding mechanics. If you enjoyed the first, you’ll feel right at home; if you didn&rs...

Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0 expands the already impressive flight simulation experience with improved graphics, more detailed environments, and a greater sense of realism. Playe...

ADOM is what happens when a rogue, a wizard, and a hungry troll walk into a dungeon and never come out. Released in 1996, this roguelike classic is brutal, brilliant, and unapologe...

Ninja Rabbits is a 1992 platform game that takes the concept of the ninja and adds a rabbit, because apparently the genre had not yet reached its full potential for unusual protago...

Before Half-Life, there was Chasm: The Rift, a game where time-traveling mutants explode into limbs and every room looks like it was decorated by a doom-metal band. A first-person ...

Get Medieval is a fast-paced fantasy action game that does not waste much time wondering whether its heroes should perhaps avoid dangerous dungeons. Instead, you pick a character, ...

Runaway City is a 1995 DOS game that combines exploration, action, and urban adventure in a setting where simply getting from one place to another can become an unexpectedly compli...

Ecstatica is a haunting anomaly in the DOS library, blending early 3D visuals with a dark fairy-tale atmosphere. Its polygonal characters may look crude by modern standards, but th...

Step into the polygonal shoes of Edward Carnby (or Emily Hartwood, if you're feeling bold) in Alone in the Dark, the grandfather of survival horror games. Released in 1992 for DOS,...

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is one of the most influential and innovative role-playing games (RPGs) in video game history. Released in 1985 by Richard Garriott under the Origin ...

Part Cold War thriller, part adventure game, part submarine simulator, Code-Name: Iceman is a Sierra title that demands patience, precision, and a deep respect for diplomacy and to...

SimTown is a lighter and more approachable spin on the SimCity formula, concentrating on the development of a small town rather than a sprawling metropolis. Players place houses, b...

Ultima 5 takes a darker turn. Lord British is missing, and his regent, Lord Blackthorn, has turned Britannia into a police state where virtues are enforced at sword-point. You know...

Body Blows is a 2D fighting game developed and published by Team17, released in 1993. It was initially launched for the Amiga and later ported to MS-DOS. Body Blows was one of the ...

When in Gaul, punch like the Gauls do. In Asterix and Obelix (1996), you control the iconic French duo on a globetrotting beat-‘em-up adventure that mostly involves sending R...

Sid Meier's Colonization is Civilization’s scrappy, historically charged cousin. You start with a tiny ship and a dream: exploit the New World before the other European power...

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 ...

Lemmings 95, released for Windows in 1994, packages the classic puzzle experience with updated presentation while preserving everything that made the original games so addictive. H...

Wolfenstein 3D is one of the landmark first-person shooters, placing players behind the eyes of an Allied soldier fighting through Nazi strongholds packed with guards, dogs, secret...

Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures is a charmingly odd experiment that shrinks globe-trotting archaeology into bite-sized missions designed for quick play sessions. Viewed fr...

When Fallout landed in 1997, it didn’t just introduce a new RPG, it redefined what post-apocalyptic storytelling could feel like. Set in a retro-futuristic wasteland dripping...

Space exploration reaches impressive heights in Master of Orion, a strategy classic that challenges players to guide an interstellar civilization toward galactic supremacy. Coloniz...

Elvira 2: The Jaws of Cerberus doubles down on everything that made the first game memorable: horror, humor, and puzzles that seem designed to mock you. Elvira herself steals the s...