The most popular abandonware shooter games

Platoon is a 1987 action strategy game based on the famous Vietnam War film, placing players in a dangerous military environment where survival depends on careful decisions. The ga...

Stargate is a 1983 DOS game inspired by the science-fiction concept of portals connecting distant worlds. The game presents an early computer interpretation of space travel and exp...

Ah yes, Blood (1997)—the cheerful little game where you rise from the grave, wield a pitchfork, and quote evil-sounding movie lines while setting cultists on fire. It’s...

Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf (1994) gives you one helicopter, a desert full of angry enemies, and more explosions than a summer blockbuster. It’s part shooter, part reso...

Space Harrier is a 1989 DOS version of Sega's famous arcade shooter, placing the player in a surreal fantasy landscape filled with giant creatures, strange enemies, obstacles, and ...

The Ultimate Doom expands the classic demon-blasting formula with an additional episode and plenty more reasons to wonder why opening that suspicious door seemed like a good idea. ...

Rush'n Attack is a 1989 DOS adaptation of Konami's fast-paced side-scrolling action game, sending players into enemy territory armed with a knife and an impressive willingness to r...

Wizball is a wonderfully strange arcade game built around a simple but unusual mission: restore color to a world that has apparently decided that monochrome is fashionable. You con...

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...

Fleet Sweep takes the high drama of naval warfare and filters it through early-80s minimalism. Think less cinematic spectacle and more abstract tension as you maneuver through trea...

Released in 1990, Day of the Viper is a first-person shooter before shooters really found their footing. Imagine a blend of Doom and a bargain-bin puzzle game, but with robots. You...

In Assault Trooper, you're the lone soldier with enough ammo to make Rambo blush, dropped behind enemy lines to shoot first and ask “was that a civilian?” later. This 1...

X-Fighter feels like one of those early experiments where developers were still figuring out what “space combat” should even look like. It is simple, direct, and unapologetical...

Shadow Warrior is a 1997 first-person shooter starring Lo Wang, a wisecracking ninja who approaches corporate warfare with a sword, an arsenal of firearms, and a remarkable lack of...

Back in 1983, IBM Centipede brought arcade bug-blasting straight to home computers, allowing office machines to moonlight as insect exterminators. This adaptation of the arcade cla...

Flying Tigers (1994, DOS) throws you into the Pacific theater with a grin and a trigger finger that never quite rests. It’s loud, brash, and unashamedly action-oriented, the ...

Operation: Inner Space is a 1994 Windows 3.x game that takes players on a strange journey through the microscopic world inside the human body. Rather than exploring distant planets...

Stargunner is a 1996 side-scrolling shooter that delivers fast, colorful space combat with plenty of enemies, explosions, weapons, and screen-filling chaos. The player pilots a hea...

Exterminator, released in 1990, is one of those games that knows exactly what it wants to do and wastes no time doing it. You’re thrown into a top-down action scenario with a...

Netherworld is a 1990 action game that sends the player into a strange, hostile world filled with enemies, obstacles, and the sort of atmosphere that suggests the local tourism boa...

Astro Fire (1994) is the illegitimate love child of Asteroids and a particularly angry fireworks show. You pilot a tiny ship with a death wish through an endless barrage of asteroi...

Wolfenstein 3D is one of the landmark first-person shooters, placing players behind the eyes of an Allied soldier fighting through Nazi strongholds packed with guards, dogs, secret...

Imagine Doom got abducted by aliens, experimented on, and sent back to Earth with a case of amnesia. That’s Alien Cabal (1997). It’s a weird mix of FPS action and X-Fil...

Uridium is a fast-paced shooter from 1988 that wastes no time getting you into the action. You’ll be piloting a sleek craft across massive enemy ships, blasting anything that get...

In Crusader: No Regret, subtlety is left at the door. You’re a heavily armed operative on a mission to blast your way through enemy installations, leaving nothing but rubble ...

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...

If Doom and Gauntlet had a lovechild, Alien Breed would be the weird kid who hangs out in dark corridors with a shotgun. Released in 1993 for DOS, this top-down shooter throws you ...

Astro Dodge (1982) is basically Frogger — in space. You control a tiny spacecraft tasked with dodging endless waves of meteors, space debris, and possibly your own questionab...

Far Cry arrived in 2004 looking like a postcard from paradise and playing like a survival exam you didn’t study for. Set on sun-drenched tropical islands, it lures you in wit...

Striker is an early football game that captures the basic appeal of the sport while squeezing it into the limited technology available on home computers of the mid-1980s. Matches a...