abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1983, Moon Patrol is the game that proved moon driving is a terrible career choice. You control a buggy with a suspension system that would make NASA jealous, jumping o...

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, ...

In Montezuma’s Revenge (1984), you play Panama Joe, an explorer who spends more time falling into pits than actually raiding temples. This early platformer is all about timin...

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...

Don’t let the clown fool you—Krusty’s Super Funhouse (1993, DOS) is more puzzle torture chamber than funhouse. You guide Krusty as he exterminates waves of rats u...

Shadowlands (1992, DOS) hands you a party of adventurers and then expects you to coordinate them like a fantasy air-traffic controller. Instead of a single hero, you manage four ch...

Jetpack is a classic 2D platformer video game developed by Adept Software and released for MS-DOS computers in 1993. Created by Adam Pedersen, it became popular for its addictive g...

F-22 Lightning II brings the flight sim genre into the late ’90s with faster action, flashier visuals, and a jet that feels like it came straight out of a sci-fi movie. The F...

Paranormal agents, conspiracy theories, and point-and-click puzzles that would make even a ghost sigh in frustration. Bureau 13 is like The X-Files if Mulder and Scully spent more ...

Scorched 3D is a free and open-source artillery game that serves as a modern adaptation of the classic MS-DOS game Scorched Earth. Developed by Gavin Camp, it was first released in...

BloodNet combines vampires, cyberspace, and noir in a cocktail so strange it probably shouldn’t work but somehow does. You are a hacker who just got bitten by a vampire and n...

A murder has been committed on a luxury yacht, and in Cruise for a Corpse, you’re the detective tasked with unraveling the mystery before the killer strikes again. The game u...

Released in 1989 for DOS, Poker Relay (also known as 9 Poker) is less a glamorous casino sim and more a smoky backroom full of pixelated cards and questionable programming. You get...

In Atomino (1991), you’re not blowing things up — you’re building atoms. That’s right: this puzzle game puts you in charge of creating molecular structures ...

Before there were AAA games with 100GB installs, there was Amulet of Yendor, a rogue-like so old-school it might as well come with a floppy disk and a sandwich bag of D&D dice....

If you’ve ever wondered what a caveman’s life was like—minus the boredom and constant risk of saber-tooth tiger attacks—Prehistorik has you covered. It&rsqu...

UMS, short for Universal Military Simulator, is a computer-based wargame simulation developed by Rainbird Software in 1988. It was designed with the intention of providing players ...

Arctic Adventure is the sequel nobody asked for to Pharaoh's Tomb, except this time you’re freezing your butt off. As Nevada Smith (not a typo, it’s his real name), you...

Come one, come all, to the saddest circus ever pixelated. In Ballyhoo, you're stuck in a depressing carnival trying to solve a kidnapping while dealing with clowns, carnies, and th...

Anvil of Dawn is what happens when 1995 tries to reinvent the fantasy RPG and ends up creating something strangely beautiful. It’s first-person, it’s real-time, and it&...

You survived Zork I, and now it’s personal. In Zork II, you face off against the enigmatic Wizard of Frobozz, who exists mostly to mess with you like a magical prankster with...

Released in 1992, Barbie for DOS is what happens when someone asks, “What if pink could be a video game?” You play as Barbie on a quest to collect accessories and win K...

Holiday World Tycoon is the sort of game that feels like it was designed after someone spent a bit too long staring at a postcard rack in an airport gift shop and thought, &ld...