abandonware games sorted by popularity

A-Train (1992) is the game that proves building a railroad empire can be just as stressful as running an actual train. Available on DOS and Mac, it’s a complex economic simul...

It’s Pac-Man, but with sunglasses. CD-Man v2.0 (1992) is a slick, souped-up clone that trades in yellow cheese for 90s attitude. Maze-chomping, ghost-dodging, and the occasio...

Lemmings 2: The Tribes is an abandoned puzzle game part of the acclaimed Lemmings series. It was developed by DMA Design and released by Psygnosis in 1993. Lemmings 2: The Tribes r...

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...

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...

Strap in and crawl through the mud - Airborne Ranger (1988) is here to chew bubblegum and infiltrate enemy lines. And it's all out of bubblegum. This tactical action game lets you ...

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...

HeroQuest brings the tabletop experience to the screen with a sincerity that is hard not to appreciate. It tries to recreate the feeling of gathering around a board, complete with ...

Released in 1990, Geisha is one of those games that makes you ask, “Who thought this was a good idea?” Part adventure, part fever dream, it’s filled with surreal ...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Wasteland is the kind of game that quietly changed history while pretending to be just another post-apocalyptic RPG. Long before wastelands were fashionab...

Captain Blood is a space exploration video game released in 1988. It was developed by the French company ERE Informatique, and it was designed by Philippe Ulrich and Didier Bouchon...

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I is an abandoned fantasy top-down DOS RPG game set in the The Lord of the Rings universe. The Lord of the Rings I was developed a...

Turbo Pascal 7 (TP7) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed by Borland as an ev...

If your childhood involved model trains and elaborate setups that your cat kept destroying, 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown is digital therapy. Released in 2000 for Windows XP, it mixes ...

Interstate '76 is a vehicular combat video game developed and published by Activision. It was released in 1997 for Microsoft Windows. The game is set in an alternate history 1976, ...

Quarantine is a futuristic racing/driving game released by GameTek in 1994 for DOS. Quarantine is set in a dark dystopian futuristic city where the player drives around in a taxi c...

Eishockey Manager is proof that spreadsheets can, in fact, be thrilling—if you really love ice hockey. Released in 1993, this is a hardcore management sim that skips the flas...

Do you find spreadsheets thrilling? Does the idea of profit margins make your heart race? Then Business Simulator is your kind of party. It’s all about running a faceless com...

Ultimate Soccer Manager taps into the irresistible fantasy of running a football club without ever leaving your chair. Instead of flashy graphics, it offers spreadsheets, statistic...

Ever wanted to be on a game show without leaving your CRT-lit basement? The $100,000 Pyramid brings you that chance. You guess words. Your partner gives clues. Sometimes you wonder...

Blue Force is a police procedural adventure game developed and released by Tsunami Games in 1993. Blue Force is a point-and-click adventure game that follows the protagonist, ...

The 1990 adaptation of Tim Burton’s Batman hit DOS screens with a moody mix of driving, platforming, and side-scrolling bat-beatdowns. Batman: The Movie swings between genres...

Paperboy 2 is the sequel to the much acclaimed coin-op arcade hit Paperboy in which you have to deliver newspapers to subscribers while avoiding every kind of obstacle. Paperboy 2 ...