abandonware games sorted by popularity

Hoyle Classic Card Games is the digital equivalent of a well-stocked card table, offering a variety of games to suit different tastes. Released in 1993, it combines accessibility w...

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...

Dive, dive! This 1989 DOS simulator puts you in control of a nuclear submarine, though most of the action involves pushing buttons and waiting very patiently. Think of it as the &l...

Mutants! Explosions! Green slime! Bio Menace kicks off with Dr. Mangle’s Lab, a side-scrolling blast of carnage where you, Snake Logan (yes, really), shoot your way through a...

Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain is an abandoned historical combat flight simulation game set in Great Britain (obviously) during World War 2. Their Finest Hour was designe...

Explosions? Check. Missiles? Check. Graphics that look like someone spilled gray soup on your monitor? Double check. A-10 Tank Killer lets you pilot a flying war machine and rain c...

Let’s be honest—Centerfold Squares (1988) is what happened when someone asked, “What if Qix but hornier?” You draw squares to reveal pixelated images of... ...

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...

Polished to a shine worthy of a senator’s sandals, Caesar 3 finally gets it right. Gorgeous 2D visuals, elegant gameplay, and voiceovers that say “No more workers!&rdqu...

Borland Turbo Basic was a programming language developed by Borland, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Turbo Basic was part of the Turbo series of progr...

Gal Pani X is the sort of arcade puzzle game that looks innocent for about five seconds before revealing its true nature: a frantic test of nerves where drawing lines is somehow mo...

Pushover is a puzzle platformer video game developed by Red Rat Software and released by Ocean Software in 1992. It was initially available for the Commodore Amiga and later ported...

There are games with subtle titles, and then there is Fuck Quest, which clearly decided subtlety was overrated. Released in 1998 for DOS, it belongs to that peculiar era when share...

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...

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...

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...

Scorched Earth (1991) was the “mother of all games” long before Doom took the title. Two or more tanks face off on a randomly generated terrain, and your only mission i...

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 ...

By 1996, Sensible World of Soccer 96/97 had evolved into something much larger than a simple football game. Players could dive into leagues from around the globe, manage transfers,...

Karateka combines cinematic storytelling with martial arts action in a way that was remarkably ambitious for its time. Players guide a lone warrior through a fortress filled with g...

Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon, also released in 1991, takes everything that worked in the original and expands it thoughtfully. The dungeon design is more varied, ...

Released in 1992, Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 abandons pure text in favor of colorful point-and-click adventure gameplay while preserving the outrageous humor that made its prede...

There was a time when digitized sprites and surprisingly loud crowd noise felt like cutting-edge sports science, and FIFA Soccer 96 proudly lived in that moment. The big selling po...

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is where Blizzard’s legendary fantasy saga began. This real-time strategy classic pits humans against orcs in a battle for control of a war-torn wor...

Take Eddie Murphy’s swagger, remove the charm, add some DOS chiptunes, and you get Beverly Hills Cop—a game adaptation that asks: “What if being a wisecracking de...

If you ever wanted to play a point-and-click adventure where the protagonists have the combined IQ of a slice of cheese, Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity is your masterpie...