abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before Doomguy started ripping and tearing, there was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. A stealth game where sneaking is mandatory, disguises are fashionable, and stabbing Nazis is encour...

If you’ve ever dreamed of commanding a WWII convoy while cold, stressed, and staring at a pixelated radar screen, Action in the North Atlantic (1989, DOS) has you covered. It...

Railroad Tycoon Deluxe feels like someone took the original game, showered it with confetti, tuned the engine, and handed it back with a wink. Better colors, refined scenarios, and...

The 2006 DOS revival of Ghostbusters tries to bottle the movie’s charm, with proton packs, traps, and a healthy dose of spectral chaos. The graphics may not make you scream, ...

Gruntz looks cute at first glance, like a game that might politely ask you to solve a few puzzles and then let you relax. It is lying. In Gruntz, you control small clay creatures t...

Planetfall is an interactive fiction sci-fie game released in 1983 by Infocom, written by Steve Meretzky. It is often considered one of Infocom's best titles. You play as a lo...

Legend of the Red Dragon (1989) isn’t so much a traditional game as it is a slice of online history. This BBS door game allowed players to log in, fight monsters, flirt with ...

If you've ever dreamed of throwing darts, arm wrestling, or playing a sleazy round of "Last Call Larry" without actually smelling like stale beer, Bar Games is your digital dive ba...

Before space marines were gritty and everything exploded in brown and grey, there was The Adventures of Captain Comic. This is early PC platforming in all its clunky, jumpy, 4-colo...

Explosions? Check. Missiles? Check. Graphics that look like someone spilled gray soup on your monitor? Double check. A-10 Tank Killer lets you pilot a flying war machine and rain c...

In Crystals of Arborea, you lead a team of heroes on a quest to defeat the evil Lord of Chaos and restore balance to a shattered world. It’s part RPG, part strategy game, wit...

Ever dreamed of running a transatlantic zeppelin empire during the golden age of flight? Zeppelin: Giants of the Sky lets you do just that — and it’s every bit as niche...

Maupiti Island (1991) is what happens when classic detective fiction meets tropical paranoia. You arrive on a peaceful-looking island for a relaxing vacation, only to discover that...

The Fool's Errand is a puzzle-adventure computer game created by Cliff Johnson and released in 1987 for Macintosh and later for MS-DOS. The game follows the journey of a namel...

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...

Imagine being the captain of a space freighter crewed entirely by neurotic aliens, each with a personality straight out of a sitcom. That’s Psi 5 Trading Company in a nutshel...

Released in 1988, BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception is part RPG, part strategy, part “did I just die in the tutorial again?” You’re a young MechWarrior on...

Quarantine is a futuristic racing/driving game released by GameTek in 1994 for DOS. Quarantine is set in a dark dystopian futuristic city where the player drives around in a taxi c...

Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur is a text adventure with occasional graphics, in which you, the not-yet-king, bumble your way through Camelot trying to prove you’re not just ...

Might and Magic: Swords of Xeen is something of a curious side chapter in the Xeen saga, originally created as a smaller adventure but still packed with the series’ trademark...

Monster Truck Madness (1996) is proof that “subtlety” and “monster trucks” don’t belong in the same sentence. With Microsoft at the wheel, you’r...

Ajax (1989) is like an arcade fever dream: vertical shooter, transforming vehicles, lasers everywhere, and a soundtrack that yells “blast stuff!” every few seconds. One...

Paperboy was one of (if not THE) arcade hit of 1985. It was developed by Atari for the arcades and later published by Mindscape for DOS in 1988. More conversion were made for quite...