abandonware games sorted by popularity

Life & Death is a medical simulation game developed by Software Toolworks and released in 1988 for MS-DOS computers. It aimed to provide players with a realistic simulation of ...

Before Worms made artillery games cute, Bang! Bang! let you and a friend lob cartoonish shells at each other using nothing but angles, wind speed, and pure spite. It's a math lesso...

ZZT (1991, DOS) looks like it was drawn by an enthusiastic ASCII artist with too much time and not enough colors. And yet, it’s brilliant. Part action game, part puzzle adven...

DOSBox is an open-source emulator that allows you to run software and games designed for the MS-DOS operating system on modern computers. As you probably already know, MS-DOS was a...

Legends of Valour (1992) was one of those ambitious games that aimed to create a living, breathing fantasy city—and partially succeeded. Set in the sprawling metropolis of Mi...

Before there was Baldur’s Gate or Skyrim, there was DND. This 1984 DOS dungeon crawler is as old-school as it gets, complete with ASCII graphics, endless hallways, and monste...

Welcome to the squared circle of wireframe pain. Released in 1991 for DOS, this game puts you in the gloves of a boxer rendered entirely out of jagged geometry. The animation was r...

In Airball (1987), you don’t play a knight, a space marine, or a plumber - you play a literal ball of air. Trapped in an isometric nightmare of spikes, fans, and poison gas, ...

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...

Strategy fans, sharpen your wits: The Perfect General (1991, DOS) marches onto the battlefield with hex-based tactics, satisfyingly crunchy mechanics, and a strict “no button...

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne is a turn-based strategy game developed by Triumph Studios and published by Gathering of Developers. It was released in 2002 as a sequel to t...

Sid Meier took one look at Earth and said, “Let’s leave this dump.” Thus, Alpha Centauri (1999, Windows XP) was born - a 4X strategy game that takes Civilization ...

Flight of the Amazon Queen is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Interactive Binary Illusions and originally released in 1995. The game is heavily inspired by the likes ...

Body Blows is a 2D fighting game developed and published by Team17, released in 1993. It was initially launched for the Amiga and later ported to MS-DOS. Body Blows was one of the ...

Uridium is a classic shoot 'em up video game that was originally developed by Andrew Braybrook and published by Hewson Consultants in 1986 for various home computer platforms (incl...

Seek and Destroy was a shoot'em up published by the well known Epic Megagames in 1996 that tried to change the usual shoot'em up gameplay for the better. Instead of wave after wave...

Darklands is what happens when medieval Europe gets even darker than it already was. This 1992 RPG drops you into the Holy Roman Empire, but don’t expect knights in shining a...

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...

In Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail, you don’t just play King Arthur—you earn your role as the guy in charge of finding a cup with magical healing powers ...

Castles 2 took everything the first game did and cranked it up with actual diplomacy, espionage, and conquest mechanics. Now you’re not just stacking bricks—you’r...

Alcatraz (1992) asks the question: what if Rambo got locked in prison and had to bust out while flexing dramatically the entire time? This top-down action game puts you in the very...

Screamer (1995) was the moment when PC gamers realized DOS could, in fact, go fast. A blistering arcade racer inspired by Daytona USA, it delivered glossy graphics, roaring engines...

Panza Kick Boxing is a video game released in 1990 for the Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, DOS, and ZX Spectrum platforms. It was developed and published by Loriciel. T...

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...