abandonware games sorted by popularity

Ah, Budokan, the game where patience and discipline meet awkwardly slow combat and the occasional flying kick. You play as a martial arts student training in various dojos, culmina...

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...

Ah, 3D-Maze. If you used Windows 3.x, you probably saw this lurking in the corner of your screen savers like a digital minotaur. Released in 1991, it’s not quite a game, but ...

Bigger, deeper, and just as punishing, Gengis Khan 2: Clan of the Gray Wolf (1992) expands the formula with more maps, more rulers, and more ways to fail spectacularly. Want to uni...

Imagine Doom and Ultima Underworld had a low-budget child who was homeschooled in a basement filled with Mountain Dew cans. That’s Amulets & Armor. A mix of first-person ...

Star Goose is a classic video game developed by Logotron and released in 1988 for various home computer systems of that era, including the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and Amstra...

Just when you thought Keen could catch a break, Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle drops him into a mystical realm full of bouncing jelly beans and sentient toasters. This is w...

In 1990, Dragon Wars tried to out-Bard’s Tale the Bard’s Tale series. With a gritty fantasy setting, brutal difficulty, and surprisingly deep lore, it succeeded in feel...

Before Street Fighter became a cultural juggernaut, it was this humble 1988 DOS brawler where Ryu’s fists felt more like sluggish bricks than blazing fireballs. The controls ...

No, it’s not about a guy who holds your groceries. Bagman is a retro-style indie throwback where you’re a pickaxe-wielding convict trying to steal bags of cash from a m...

Deskmate is a software suite developed by Tandy Corporation that provided a graphical user interface (GUI) and a set of applications for personal computers. It was often bundled wi...

If Low Blow (1990, DOS) teaches you anything, it’s that boxing doesn’t always require finesse — sometimes you just mash the punch button until your opponent stops...

The Miami Vice game developed by Capstone Software and released in 1989 for MS-DOS was an action-strategy game based on the popular TV show. Unlike other arcade-style adaptations, ...

Halloween Harry is a DOS science fiction multi-directional scroller shooter game. Halloween Harry - later renamed Alien Carnage - was published by Apogee, developed by Interactive ...

Part strategy, part slapstick cartoon, North and South makes the American Civil War look like a Saturday morning show. You juggle troop movements, train robberies, and spontaneous ...

Boston Bomb Club (1991, DOS) is a Rube Goldberg fever dream disguised as a puzzle game. Your mission: guide bombs (yes, bombs) along increasingly elaborate tracks using contraption...

The year is 1995, and Abuse brings us one of the slickest, darkest run-and-gun shooters ever to crawl out of a DOS/Linux/Mac basement. You play a guy in prison for a crime he didn&...

Adapting movies into games is always tricky, but Predator 2 gives it a shot with mixed results. You play as a cop cleaning up the mean streets while occasionally being stalked by t...

Circuit's Edge is a cyberpunk-themed role-playing game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Infocom. It was released in 1990 for MS-DOS. Set in a dystopian future, Cir...