abandonware games sorted by popularity

Monster Truck Madness (1996) is proof that “subtlety” and “monster trucks” don’t belong in the same sentence. With Microsoft at the wheel, you’r...

Shadow President is a 1993 DOS strategy game that places players in the Oval Office with an uncomfortable amount of responsibility. You must manage the United States, deal with int...

Also known as Puzzle Bobble, this bubble-popping classic stars those cute dragons from Bubble Bobble, now in competitive puzzle mode. Match three colors, clear the screen, panic as...

Black Tiger is a side-scrolling action game packed with monsters, treasure and enough medieval violence to make a quiet afternoon in the countryside seem considerably less attracti...

Steel Panthers is the kind of strategy game that looks innocent for about five minutes, then suddenly has you worrying about armor thickness, firing angles, ammunition and whether ...

The Amazing Spider-Man is a side-scrolling action game developed by Oxford Digital Enterprises and published by Paragon Software for MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST. The plot revolves ...

Wolfenstein 3D is one of the landmark first-person shooters, placing players behind the eyes of an Allied soldier fighting through Nazi strongholds packed with guards, dogs, secret...

Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? adds a particularly nasty complication to the usual Carmen formula: the criminals are not merely running around the world, they are jumping throug...

Manhunter 2: San Francisco continues the unsettling science fiction saga with another blend of investigation, puzzle solving, and dark storytelling. Once again humanity struggles b...

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom arrived in 1989 with a simple objective: survive collapsing mines, hostile cultists, and endless hazards without losing your fedora. Based on t...

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...

Subtlety is not in Fire and Forget’s vocabulary. You drive. You shoot. Things explode. That’s the pitch, and the game sticks to it with admirable stubbornness. Released...

Wizardry 2: The Knight of Diamonds takes the classic dungeon crawl and adds a few extra twists, like more mazes to get lost in and puzzles designed to make you question your life c...

Starflight is a 1986 science-fiction role-playing and exploration game that gives players an entire galaxy to investigate. You command a starship, travel between planets, land on a...

If Oil Barons is Monopoly with attitude, Oil Imperium is its slightly more serious cousin who read a business textbook once and won’t let you forget it. Released in 1989, thi...

Released in 1992, Sextris answered a question nobody had urgently asked by combining puzzle mechanics with cheeky adult themes. Beneath the eyebrow-raising presentation lay a surpr...

In Jones in the Fast Lane, success is measured not by defeating monsters or saving kingdoms, but by surviving everyday life. Released in 1991, this unusual board game simulation ha...

Released in 1997, Extreme Assault is a bold and ambitious hybrid that blends flight simulation with ground combat in a futuristic setting. You pilot advanced military hardware acro...

Strip Poker Professional: REV B is a revised edition of the adult poker game, keeping the central formula intact while presenting itself as an updated version of the original. The ...

Set in a foggy, postcard-perfect version of the British capital, Eagle Eye Mysteries in London takes the educational detective formula and gives it a polite accent. You play a youn...

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...

With a title like Dogfight: 80 Years of Aerial Warfare, you know you’re in for a serious history lesson disguised as a game. Released in 1993, this DOS flight sim spans decad...

Heroes of Might and Magic II takes the foundation of its predecessor and polishes it with the care of someone who genuinely loved the original. The visuals are richer, the mechanic...

Space Hulk is a 1993 tactical game based on the Warhammer 40,000 board game, placing squads of Space Marines inside enormous abandoned spacecraft known as hulks. These dark corrido...

Yes, it’s called Fish!, and yes, it’s as quirky as the exclamation mark suggests. This is a puzzle-platformer with personality, placing you in surreal environments that...

Karadoc’s back, and apparently inflation hit the dungeon economy hard—he wants his gold! Cadaver: The Payoff is less a sequel and more a direct continuation, like findi...

Borland Turbo C v1 introduced one of the classic programming environments of the personal-computer era. Released when C development on DOS could be a rather intimidating affair, Tu...

In Color Lines (1992, DOS), colors aren’t just pretty—they're plotting your demise. You match five or more balls in a row before your screen becomes a chaotic rainbow p...

Before Half-Life, there was Chasm: The Rift, a game where time-traveling mutants explode into limbs and every room looks like it was decorated by a doom-metal band. A first-person ...

Time Slaughter is a fighting game that embraces the wonderfully excessive attitude of 1990s arcade combat. Its roster of bizarre characters is more interested in beating each other...