abandonware games sorted by popularity

ARJ is a file compression utility and file format created by Robert K. Jung. The name "ARJ" stands for "Archived by Robert Jung." It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s a...

Ah yes, the game that crawled so Ultima could run. Akalabeth is a wireframe dungeon crawl where you descend into monster-infested labyrinths with the elegance of a lost spreadsheet...

Ascii Sector is what happens when someone takes Privateer, removes the graphics, and replaces them with pure ASCII and sheer willpower. It’s open-world space sim meets roguel...

Before Command & Conquer, there was Command HQ (1990, DOS/Mac)—an early RTS that said “what if we made World War III playable?” It’s global domination m...

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 ...

City of Lost Children is as beautiful as it is bewildering. Based on the surreal 1995 film, this adventure game drops you into a dark, oily dystopia filled with creepy orphans, biz...

Space Rogue is what happens when Elite and Ultima decide to have a baby… in space. You’re dumped into a universe of hostile aliens, smugglers, and zero-g dogfights, an...

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...

Extreme Pinball from 1995 takes a classic pastime and injects it with a generous dose of digital attitude. This isn’t a calm, gentlemanly pinball experience—it’s ...

Few games capture the feeling of “the galaxy is huge and you are spectacularly insignificant” quite like Frontier: Elite 2. Released in 1993, this ambitious sequel thro...

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...

Ski or Die is a winter sports-themed video game that was originally released in 1990 for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The game was developed by...

Quest for Glory III: Wages of War is an adventure/role-playing game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1992. The player takes on the role of the Hero, who has journe...

X-COM: Terror from the Deep (also known as X-COM 2) is a DOS science fiction tactical strategy game and the sequel to one of the most popular DOS games in history, X-COM: UFO ...

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 ...

Holiday Lemmings takes the familiar chaos of tiny, clueless creatures marching toward doom and gives it a festive twist. Released in 1993, it dresses up the classic formula with ho...

Castle of Dr. Brain is a puzzle lover’s fever dream. It’s like someone crammed a Mensa test into a haunted house and added robot arms. You’re solving logic grids,...

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I is an abandoned fantasy top-down DOS RPG game set in the The Lord of the Rings universe. The Lord of the Rings I was developed a...

In The Hunt is a side-scrolling shooter that looks like Metal Slug took a deep breath and dove underwater. Released in arcades first and later ported to PC, it’s all about pi...

La Abadía del Crimen (1987) is famously unforgiving, and it knows it. Inspired by Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, this is an isometric adventure where breaking the...

Aldo’s Adventure is what you get when someone squints at Donkey Kong and decides to remake it after four cups of coffee and a long nap. You play Aldo, a brave little guy whos...