abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1988, BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception is part RPG, part strategy, part “did I just die in the tutorial again?” You’re a young MechWarrior on...

Flight of the Intruder aims for authenticity, placing you in the tense skies of Vietnam-era missions. This isn’t a carefree joyride; every sortie carries weight, from meticul...

Fairy Nights (2000) is a late-era fantasy title that leans heavily into charm rather than spectacle. Built for Windows XP, it feels like a cozy bedtime story turned into an interac...

This 1989 game is based on the animated movie where dogs die, go to heaven, then come back for revenge (sort of). The DOS adaptation? Well, it’s more like All Pixels Go Nowhe...

The Wizard's Castle is a classic text-based, dungeon-crawling adventure game released in 1980, designed by Joseph R. Power. The game was originally developed for the Exidy Sorcerer...

Welcome to Alter Ego: Male Version, where your life begins with a cry and a diaper and only goes downhill - or uphill, depending on your choices. This text-based simulation lets yo...

Wizardry 4: The Return of Werdna flips the script by letting you play the villain, which is as delightful as it is diabolical. You control Werdna, an evil wizard with a knack for c...

Long before “quiet quitting” became a buzzword, Dilbert’s Desktop Games captured the soul-crushing absurdity of office life. Released for Windows XP in 1997, this...

Q*bert is a classic arcade game that was created by Warren Davis and Jeff Lee and was released by Gottlieb in 1982. The main goal of Qbert is to change the color of every...

Ah, 2400 A.D. A game where you can rebel against a robot police state… by slowly walking around in beige. Released in 1988, it’s what happens when you mix Orwellian dy...

Welcome to the future, where space empires are managed entirely via text and colored dots. Anacreon puts you in charge of an interstellar civilization and lets you conquer galaxies...

X-COM: Terror from the Deep (also known as X-COM 2) is a DOS science fiction tactical strategy game and the sequel to one of the most popular DOS games in history, X-COM: UFO ...

Interactive Girls Club Games is one of those early ’90s curiosities that tried to blend interactivity with, let’s say, “adult-themed social simulation.” The...

In Carmageddon, winning a race is just one of three options—the other two involve mowing down pedestrians or wrecking your opponents. It’s the game your parents definit...

NeoPaint 3.2 is a raster-based graphics editing software designed for DOS. It is a lightweight yet powerful alternative to more complex image editing programs like Photoshop. NeoPa...

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...

Lamborghini: American Challenge (1992) is what happens when arcade racing meets a poster-covered teenage bedroom. You race exotic cars across the U.S., earn money, upgrade vehicles...

Amerzone is like stepping into a dream where logic is optional and atmosphere is everything. You play a journalist unraveling the mystery of a dying explorer’s last journey, ...

If Grand Theft Auto had a German uncle who worked in finance, it might look a lot like Dime City. Released in 1995 for DOS, this oddball title blends business simulation with under...

The Amazing Spider-Man is a side-scrolling action game developed by Oxford Digital Enterprises and published by Paragon Software for MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST. The plot revolves ...

Tyrian 2000 is an old DOS science fiction classic shoot'em up, developed by Eclipse Software and designed by Alexander Brandon, Jason Emery, Daniel Cook. Tyrian 2000 is one of...