abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before Street Fighter became a cultural juggernaut, it was this humble 1988 DOS brawler where Ryu’s fists felt more like sluggish bricks than blazing fireballs. The controls ...

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe is a 1991 DOS flight combat simulation from Lucasfilm Games that combines arcade-style flying with strategic management during an alternate-history ...

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...

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, ...

In Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Sierra took the Wild West and decided it needed more jokes, more puns, and significantly more medical malpractice. Released in 1993, this po...

Tyrian 2000 is what happens when a classic shoot ’em up decides to go all in and then some. Released in 1999, it delivers relentless action, an absurd variety of weapons, and mor...

Blackthorne (1994) is what happens when a '90s action hero gets lost in a side-scrolling alien world and decides to shoot everything until it makes sense. You’re Kyle, a shot...

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...

In 1987, Driller arrived as a revolutionary 3D game that looked light-years ahead of its time. Using the Freescape engine, it let players explore a fully 3D world—on a DOS ma...

Ah, Lula: The Sexy Empire (1997, Windows) — the game that tried to make adult business management classy and failed spectacularly. You play Lula, a buxom entrepreneur trying ...

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...

If you ever wanted to run a football club without leaving your chair, The Manager (1991, DOS) delivers. This early management sim lets you buy players, balance budgets, and suffer ...

BloodRayne combines third-person action, supernatural horror and a heroine who is considerably better equipped for monster hunting than most people. Rayne, a dhampir working as an ...

Donkey Kong is a landmark video game franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and first released by Nintendo in 1981. The original arcade game introduced players to a narrative where ...

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is a strange but fascinating blend of adventure game, RPG, and comedy horror. You wander through a spooky mansion, solve puzzles, fight monsters, and g...

Released in 1988, Leisure Suit Larry 2: Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) sends Larry into an increasingly outrageous international adventure filled with spies, tropi...

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...

Quest for Glory 4: Shadows of Darkness takes the series into a much darker setting, sending the hero to the ominous land of Mordavia. Released in 1993, the game blends role-playing...

The 2006 DOS revival of Ghostbusters tries to bottle the movie’s charm, with proton packs, traps, and a healthy dose of spectral chaos. The graphics may not make you scream, ...

When Links: The Challenge of Golf appeared in 1990, it immediately set new standards for realistic golf simulations. Beautifully designed courses, convincing physics, and carefully...

The Ancient Art of War is one of those games whose title sounds as though it should be carved into a stone tablet, and its ambition certainly matches the name. Released in 1984, it...

Before immersive sims were a buzzword, there was Ultima Underworld. Dropping you into a massive first-person dungeon, it gave players freedom unthinkable at the time. Want to negot...

If Dizzy was an egg on an adventure, Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk turns that concept up a notch with a proper fairytale plot. Released in 1993 for DOS, the game sees Dizzy set out...

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...

Qix is a 1989 arcade-style puzzle game built around the strangely satisfying task of claiming territory while avoiding a dangerous moving shape. Players guide a marker across the s...

Uninvited is one of those games that makes you question every decision, usually right after you make it. Released in 1987, it blends adventure gameplay with a spooky atmosphere tha...

Released in 1988, Life & Death offers an unusually serious medical simulation where players assume the role of a surgeon responsible for diagnosing illnesses and performing delicat...

Go Simulator is a 1991 DOS adaptation of the ancient board game Go, proving once again that computers were perfectly happy to turn extremely old human pastimes into extremely serio...

Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire continues the adventures of the aspiring hero introduced in the first game, sending the player to the exotic desert land of Shapeir. Released in 19...