abandonware games sorted by popularity

Soko-Ban is the classic 1984 DOS adaptation of the deceptively simple puzzle concept in which the player pushes crates onto designated spaces. There is one important catch: crates ...

Sega Rally Championship is a 1995 arcade racing classic that brings the wonderfully unpredictable world of rally driving to the PC. Players race through dirt, gravel, mud, and othe...

Ardentryst is the indie platformer that tried really hard to be a Metroidvania and kinda pulled it off. With anime-style art, RPG elements, and two playable characters, it’s ...

Ah, Dizzy—the little egg that could. Released in 1987, this puzzle-platformer puts you in the delicate shell of an egg who somehow manages to roll, jump, and carry objects wi...

Released in 1992, La Colmena is a curious adaptation of Camilo José Cela’s novel, and it wears its literary roots proudly. Rather than focusing on traditional gameplay...

GW-BASIC (short for Gee Whiz BASIC) is a dialect of the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft. It's one of the early implementations of BASIC and was included ...

Published in 1988, Lombard RAC Rally captures the demanding world of rally racing with challenging courses, changing terrain, and an emphasis on precision driving. Unlike tradition...

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...

If you’ve ever wanted to manage your own pyramid scheme—literally—Day of the Pharaoh (1989) is your ticket. This strategy game sets you in ancient Egypt, juggling...

Vlad Tepes Dracula turns one of history’s most notorious figures into the star of a dark adventure built around vampires, mystery, and Gothic atmosphere. Released in 1997, the ga...

DOSBox is an open-source emulator that allows you to run software and games designed for the MS-DOS operating system on modern computers. As you probably already know, MS-DOS was a...

Alien Trilogy is a first-person shooter video game released in 1996 for various platforms, including the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and MS-DOS. Developed by Probe Entertainment and ...

Farming Simulator 2009 Gold turns agriculture into a surprisingly detailed virtual occupation. Instead of glamorous adventures, you get fields, machinery, crops, livestock, and the...

Roadwar Europa is a 1987 DOS strategy game that moves the post-apocalyptic road adventure into a devastated European landscape. Players command a convoy through a continent where r...

Whale's Voyage is a quirky science-fiction adventure that combines exploration, trading, combat, and a surprisingly large amount of freedom. Despite the title, you are not spending...

Ken's Labyrinth throws players into twisting mazes packed with monsters, hidden rooms, colorful textures, and enough secret passages to keep even the most determined explorer suspi...

Master Ninja: Shadow Warrior of Death is a martial-arts action game that embraces the classic fantasy of becoming an unstoppable ninja warrior. The premise is refreshingly uncompli...

Ultima 8 drops the Avatar into a grim, volcanic world where “fun” is defined as plummeting to your death from badly timed jumps. Yes, the infamous platforming mechanics...

Vixen is an action game built around a rather unusual combination of fantasy, combat, and transformation. The player takes control of a heroine capable of using magical abilities w...

Dominus (1994) is what happens when a tower defense game and an RPG get thrown into a medieval blender. You’re tasked with defending your castle from wave after wave of enemi...

Mindwheel is a distinctive science fiction adventure that combines interactive storytelling with a strange, dreamlike atmosphere and a focus on exploration. Players encounter unusu...

Imagine stepping into a sci-fi fever dream written during a caffeine crash, and you’ll get Bargon Attack (1992). This French point-and-click adventure is stylish, surreal, an...

One Step Beyond is a retro-inspired action game that takes a familiar arcade formula and gives it a distinctly experimental edge. The gameplay revolves around navigating compact en...

ATAC (1992) is what you get when someone says, “What if we made SimCity, but for waging the War on Drugs?” You play as the head of an anti-narcotics task force, deployi...

Free Enterprise from 1996 is business simulation with a distinctly ’90s sense of ambition. You’re tasked with building and managing a corporate empire, juggling finance...

England Championship Special (1991, DOS) is the kind of football game that doesn’t pretend to know what the Premier League will look like in 30 years—it just wants you ...

By the time Lords of Midnight: The Citadel arrived in 1995, it carried the weight of a classic on its shoulders. Rather than reinventing the original, it refines and reinterprets i...

Don’t let the cartoony name fool you: Skullduggery: Adventures in Horror wants to unsettle you, and it’s surprisingly good at it. This early horror adventure mixes clas...

Paperboy is a 1988 arcade classic that transforms the seemingly ordinary profession of newspaper delivery into a hazardous athletic event. Players ride a bicycle through suburban s...

Police Quest: Open Season is a 1993 adventure game that takes the series into a darker and more serious direction, following detectives investigating a disturbing criminal case. Th...