abandonware games sorted by popularity

Lemmings was one of the most iconic puzzle games ever made. It was also one of the most inventive. The idea behind those tiny furred punk suicidal rodents is truly a stroke of geni...

Atomix is a tile-based puzzle game released in 1990 by Thalion Software for platforms like Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and Commodore 64. The objective of Atomix is to assemble mo...

Before Doom, there was Catacomb Abyss, where you throw fireballs down corridors at zombies who all apparently graduated from the same school of slow shuffling. It's a first-person ...

Warlords is a fantasy strategy game that turns the world into a massive board game of conquest. You command heroes, raise armies, capture cities, and summon mythical creatures in a...

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...

Boulder Dash is a classic action-puzzle video game that was first released in 1984 by First Star Software. In Boulder Dash, players control a character named Rockford as he di...

Ever wanted to experience the grim, claustrophobic life of a WWII submarine captain without leaving your desk? Aces of the Deep (1994, DOS) delivers that dream in spades — to...

Crescent is a mysterious blend of action and intrigue set in a pixelated sci-fi world. The plot is sparse, dropped in cryptic hints as you battle your way through hostile landscape...

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...

Ultima 5 takes a darker turn. Lord British is missing, and his regent, Lord Blackthorn, has turned Britannia into a police state where virtues are enforced at sword-point. You know...

Before Command & Conquer, there was Command HQ (1990, DOS/Mac)—an early RTS that said “what if we made World War III playable?” It’s global domination m...

StarCraft is a classic RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released in 1998 for Windows and Macintosh. StarCraft takes the Warcraft experience to ...

Alternate Reality: The City is a role-playing video game developed by Paradise Programming for various platforms including Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, and Commodore 64. It was released ...

Welcome to Z, the real-time strategy game where psychotic robots with British accents duke it out over territory in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Think Command & Conquer if the...

F-15 Strike Eagle II takes everything that made the original a classic and cranks it up like a jet engine at full throttle. The visuals are sharper, the missions are more varied, a...

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...

Ms. Pac-Man is a classic arcade game released by Midway in 1982 (1984 for DOS) as a follow-up to the original Pac-Man (1980), developed by Namco. While its core gameplay ...

Times of Lore is an abandoned action RPG designed by Chris Roberts, developed and released by Origin Systems in 1989 for DOS and many more 8 bit and 16 bit platforms. Compared to U...

The final Championship Manager to grace DOS—and what a send-off. Season 97/98 is the fan-favorite for a reason: every transfer, every injury, every last-minute goal feels lik...

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...

Long before Minecraft let us build worlds, Adventure Construction Set handed you a digital Lego box and said, “Go nuts.” Want to make a dungeon full of orcs and ham san...

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 ...

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...