abandonware games sorted by popularity

Silent Service is a 1985 submarine simulation that puts players in command of an American submarine during World War II. The game combines navigation, sonar, targeting, torpedo att...

Nebulus, also known as Tower Toppler in some regions, is a classic video game released in the 1980s. It was developed by John M. Phillips and published by Hewson Consultants. The g...

Ninja Rabbits is a 1992 platform game that takes the concept of the ninja and adds a rabbit, because apparently the genre had not yet reached its full potential for unusual protago...

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...

Simon the Sorcerer is a wonderfully irreverent 1993 adventure that follows Simon, a sarcastic teenager who is transported to a fantasy world and promptly discovers that becoming a ...

If you ever wanted to feel like you were trapped in a washing machine armed with lasers, Descent is your game. Released in 1995, this claustrophobic, six-degrees-of-freedom shooter...

Mixed-up Mother Goose turns classic nursery rhymes into a cheerful point-and-click adventure where familiar characters and objects have been scattered across a colorful world. Play...

Champions of Krynn is a RPG released in 1990 by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and is the first game in the Dragonlance Gold Box series. It is based on the Advanced Dungeons &am...

Q*Bert is a 1984 arcade classic that takes a small orange creature, places him on a pyramid of colorful cubes, and then makes the entire structure a surprisingly dangerous workplac...

KGB delivers one of the most ambitious espionage adventures of the early 1990s, placing players inside a complex web of political intrigue during the final years of the Soviet Unio...

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...

In Ancients 1: Deathwatch, you gather your pixelated party and set off to cleanse a city of evil, or at least try not to get mugged by slimes. It's a dungeon crawler in classic DOS...

Released in 1998 for Windows XP-era PCs, Fatal Relations is an interactive drama that leans heavily into adult themes, intrigue, and morally questionable choices. More visual novel...

Ah, Apache Strike (1989), the game where you're the lone helicopter pilot flying through blocky cities that look like they were made of leftover Lego bricks. Your mission? Blow up ...

This isn’t Disney’s musical fairytale—it’s a DOS game, which means Beauty and the Beast is way more "puzzle platformer" than "tale as old as time." You play...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a humorous free text adventure game based on the novel of the same name written by Douglas Adams (if you never read it, shame on you!). The ...

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...

Forget Freddy’s razor glove for a second - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989) for DOS is terrifying in its own way. Mostly because of the controls. You play as a teen trying to...

Night Shift is a 1990 action game with a wonderfully unusual premise: instead of saving the world, the player is busy working a night shift. Naturally, this is not an ordinary job,...

In Lucky Luke (1997, Windows), the fastest gun in the West is also the funniest. Based on the beloved Belgian comic, the game mixes platforming and slapstick as Luke outsmarts band...

Populous 2: Trials of the Olympian Gods expands the original god simulation concept by adding mythology, new powers, and even greater control over the world. Players take on the ro...

Rendezvous with Rama is a 1985 DOS adventure based on Arthur C. Clarke's celebrated science-fiction novel. Players explore the mysterious Rama, a gigantic alien spacecraft that has...

Empire: Wargame of the Century feels like a military textbook that accidentally became entertaining. Spanning centuries of warfare, it combines grand strategy with a surprisingly a...

Released in 1993, Sexy Fighter entered the fighting genre with confidence and enough outrageous humor to make it stand apart from more serious competitors. Matches were straightfor...

Fable (1996) is one of those DOS curiosities that feels like it was built late at night with equal parts ambition and caffeine. It presents itself as a fantasy role-playing experie...

Destruction Derby (1995) is the game that taught us driving isn’t about speed or elegance—it’s about gleefully ramming your car into other vehicles until only twi...

Cartooners lets you live out your childhood dream of being a one-person animation studio… minus the caffeine addiction. It’s a charming sandbox where you can draw your...