abandonware games sorted by popularity

It Came from the Desert is a cinematic masterpiece of giant ants, paranoia, and 1950s sci-fi homage. Released in 1990 for DOS, it blends action, strategy, and storytelling into a u...

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, ...

ARJ is a file compression utility and file format created by Robert K. Jung. The name "ARJ" stands for "Archived by Robert Jung." It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s a...

Based on a classic Chinese novel, Bandit Kings of Ancient China combines strategy, RPG elements, and about 800 names you’ll never remember. You play one of 108 outlaws trying...

War never changes—but it does get oddly cute in Cannon Fodder. Guide your tiny commandos through missions filled with explosions, carnage, and dark humor. The game mixes arca...

Step into Crazy Nick’s Leisure Suit Larry Casino and leave your wallet safe—only your pride is at stake here. Larry Laffer, king of questionable fashion, hosts a digita...

Ah yes, Blood (1997)—the cheerful little game where you rise from the grave, wield a pitchfork, and quote evil-sounding movie lines while setting cultists on fire. It’s...

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...

Alien Legacy (1994) is like SimCity crashed into Star Trek and nobody called the insurance company. It’s a real-time strategy/simulation game that has you managing a colony i...

Gorillas, also known as "Gorillas.bas," is a turn-based artillery game that was included as a sample program with Microsoft QBasic, an IDE and interpreter for a variant of the...

Boston Bomb Club (1991, DOS) is a Rube Goldberg fever dream disguised as a puzzle game. Your mission: guide bombs (yes, bombs) along increasingly elaborate tracks using contraption...

King’s Bounty is a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, originally released in 1990 by New World Computing. It was created by Jon Van Caneghem, also known for the Migh...

Risk: The World Conquest Game is a 1989 DOS version of the famous strategy board game, offering players the familiar objective of controlling territories and eventually conquering ...

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...

Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire takes the Ultima formula somewhere considerably less medieval, sending the player into a lost jungle world filled with dinosaurs, strange cultur...

Skale Tracker is a music tracker designed for composing and arranging electronic music on a computer, continuing a tradition that began with classic tracker software on Amiga and D...

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...

Comix Zone (1995, Windows XP) is what happens when a comic book artist gets pulled into his own creation and reacts by roundhouse-kicking everything in sight. Stylized to the max, ...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a famously peculiar interactive fiction adventure based on Douglas Adams's equally peculiar science-fiction comedy. Playing it is less about...

Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 1995 as a sequel to the original Gabriel Knight...

Before “yippee-ki-yay” became gaming shorthand for chaos, Die Hard (1989) tried to capture the movie’s skyscraper shootout on DOS. You play as John McClane, trapp...

Released in 1994, Lode Runner: The Legend Returns successfully modernizes the beloved classic without sacrificing the elegant puzzle design that made the original unforgettable. En...

Before Pixar made you cry with a lamp and a toy cowboy, there was 3D Studio 3 on DOS. Released in 1993, this was the go-to tool for aspiring animators who didn’t mind waiting...

Strip Poker 2 takes the familiar poker format and adds the particular incentive suggested by its title. Beneath the novelty, however, there is still a straightforward card game bas...

MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients is the sequel to MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy. It is a science fiction role-playing game (RPG) released in 1991, developed by Par...

Solar Winds: The Escape is a 1993 space adventure that combines exploration, combat, trading, and a healthy dose of science-fiction mystery. Players pilot a spacecraft through a la...

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...

F-14 Tomcat is the kind of flight simulator that makes you feel like you should be wearing aviator sunglasses and chewing gum while sitting at your desk. Released at the height of ...

WinTrek brings the Star Trek-inspired space strategy tradition to Windows, placing players in command of a starship and asking them to navigate a hostile galaxy while managing reso...

Released in 1996, Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail sends Larry aboard a luxurious cruise where romance, mystery, and comedy collide with spectacular enthusiasm. The hand-drawn a...