abandonware games sorted by popularity

Rock 'n Roll is a 1989 DOS puzzle game that combines rolling-ball mechanics with increasingly elaborate mazes and obstacles. Players guide a ball through levels filled with hazards...

The Civil War from 1995 takes a more developed approach to the American conflict, presenting its historical subject through strategy, military planning, and campaign management. Th...

King’s Bounty is a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, originally released in 1990 by New World Computing. It was created by Jon Van Caneghem, also known for the Migh...

Half comic book, half arcade game, Batman: The Caped Crusader (1988) offers a delightfully weird aesthetic with its paneled visual style and pulp serial vibe. You’ll punch, p...

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, ...

Mixed-up Fairy Tales takes the familiar world of classic fairy tales and gives it a playful shake, scattering characters, objects, and stories into a wonderfully confused adventure...

World Class Leader Board is a classic golf simulation that takes a fairly serious approach to the ancient art of hitting a tiny ball into a distant hole. Rather than turning golf i...

Before James Bond was saving the world with cinematic flair, he was crashing pixelated helicopters in 007: License to Kill. This top-down action game takes the movie and crams it i...

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...

Merchant Prince invites players to build a commercial empire across the Renaissance world, combining trading, diplomacy, politics, and occasional military force. Managing cities an...

The Games: Winter Challenge takes the multi-event sports formula onto snow and ice, offering a collection of winter competitions where timing and control are considerably more impo...

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...

Powermonger takes the god-game formula of Populous and gives it teeth. Instead of playing benevolent deity, you’re more like a slightly cranky warlord, sending little soldier...

EcoQuest 2 takes its environmental message seriously but packages it in a way that’s engaging rather than preachy. You explore lush rainforest environments, solving puzzles t...

Black & White (2001) is what happens when a god game gets a bit too literal. You play as a deity, complete with a giant hand, an enormous ego, and a giant pet that poops on vil...

This 1992 casino sim for DOS drops you into the neon-soaked carpet jungle of the Four Queens Hotel in Vegas. There’s no plot, no hero’s journey - just you, a digital ba...

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...

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...

Spy Hunter is a 1984 DOS version of the classic arcade action game, putting the player behind the wheel of a heavily armed sports car with a very simple mission: drive fast and mak...

American McGee's Alice takes Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and gives it a decidedly darker makeover. Alice is no longer simply wandering through a whimsical fantasy populated by eccen...

Transarctica presents a wonderfully bleak vision of the future in which Earth has frozen over and surviving civilization depends on enormous trains crossing the icy wilderness. The...

Ultima 2 asks the pressing question: what if you mixed time travel with fantasy and a truly mean sorceress named Minax? The answer is chaos. You’ll bounce between eras—...

Police Quest 2: The Vengeance continues the realistic police adventure series with a new investigation, deeper mechanics, and more opportunities to experience the daily challenges ...

Operation Wolf is a 1989 arcade-style military shooter that puts the player directly into the middle of a dangerous rescue mission. The objective is simple enough: shoot enemies, p...

Wall Street Raider is less a game about buying a nice office and more an uncompromising simulation of corporate warfare. Released in 1986, it puts you in the role of an ambitious i...

Banner Mania is a DOS graphics utility devoted to the surprisingly important art of making banners, signs, headings, and other large pieces of text. Before modern desktop publishin...

Galaxian is one of those early arcade classics that proved space shooters didn’t need complicated rules to be thrilling. Instead of aliens politely marching in formation, the...

Snoopy and Peanuts is a 1990 DOS game inspired by Charles M. Schulz's beloved comic-strip characters, bringing Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and friends into a lighthearted computer adven...

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...

Borland Turbo Pascal 1.0 was the first release of one of the most influential programming environments of the 1980s. It brought Pascal development to DOS in a package that was rema...