abandonware games sorted by popularity

After the success of Ultima 6: The False Prophet, Origin decided to "create worlds" not part of the popular Ultima series (strictly speaking) using the same engine of Ultima 6. The...

If Star Trek: 25th Anniversary isn’t on your DOS nostalgia list, fix that now. Released in 1992, it’s a point-and-click adventure that actually feels like classic Star ...

In 1983, Battlezone asked: what if vector graphics could give you war-induced vertigo? You’re in a tank, in a wireframe world, fighting other tanks. That’s it. But it&r...

Super Solvers: Gizmos & Gadgets is what happens when someone decides that learning physics and mechanics should feel like a cartoon treasure hunt inside an abandoned warehouse....

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...

Carl Lewis Challenge is a sports simulation video game that was released in 1992 by Psygnosis for various platforms, including the Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS. Named after the famous ...

Questprobe Featuring Spider-Man is an abandoned text-based adventure game designed by Scott Adams, developed and released by Adventure International in 1986 for DOS but was also pu...

Ski or Die is a winter sports-themed video game that was originally released in 1990 for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The game was developed by...

Ah, Advantage Tennis—where the graphics are flat, the physics are questionable, and the grunts are blessedly absent. This DOS-era sports sim serves up matches that somehow fe...

Deus Ex is a critically acclaimed action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released in 2000 and was designed by Warren Spect...

Dungeon Keeper 2 took everything its predecessor did and gave it a demonic polish. Slicker graphics, full 3D environments, and imps that finally looked like they deserved a raise. ...

Think you’re good at making tough decisions under pressure? Advanced Civilization dares you to prove it by turning diplomacy into passive-aggressive warfare. Based on the cla...

Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds expands on the original with more content and a broader scope, as if the developers decided one world was simply not enough. The gameplay remain...

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 ...

Flying Tigers (1994, DOS) throws you into the Pacific theater with a grin and a trigger finger that never quite rests. It’s loud, brash, and unashamedly action-oriented, the ...

Sid Meier's Colonization is Civilization’s scrappy, historically charged cousin. You start with a tiny ship and a dream: exploit the New World before the other European power...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Star Trek: First Contact (not to be confused with the later movie) is more puzzle-solving than phaser-firing. You take control of the Enterprise crew as t...

Often mistaken as a Dig Dug clone, Digger is more like its eccentric cousin who insists on bringing a disco soundtrack to every family gathering. Released in 1983 for DOS, it combi...

Road Runner is a video game based on the popular Looney Tunes cartoon series featuring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. The game was originally developed by Atari Games and rel...

Back in 1984, Zaxxon was the future. Isometric graphics? Whoa. Shadow effects? Mind blown. But mostly, it was a game about flying a chunky spaceship through a heavily fortified spa...

The Curse of Monkey Island is the third installment in the iconic Monkey Island point-and-click adventure series developed by LucasArts. Released in 1997, it introduced a new visua...

Ugh! answers the eternal question: what if a stone-age delivery service were the basis for an entire video game? You play as a caveman whose main skills include grunting, flying a ...

Then there’s Martian Dreams, the Ultima game where you travel to Mars in the 19th century with none other than Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s as delightfully...

If spreadsheets are your love language, Capitalism 2 is pure romance. This brutally detailed simulation lets you create your own corporate empire from scratch—manufacturing, ...

If Sorcerer Lord was about controlling armies, Sorcerian (1990, DOS) zooms in to the party level — a side-scrolling RPG that’s as odd as it is ambitious. You build a te...