abandonware games sorted by popularity

If you’ve ever wanted to fly a jet fighter at Mach “Oh no, I crashed again,” After Burner is the game for you. This 1989 DOS classic straps you into an F-14 and l...

Released in 1983, this classic arcade-style shooter has you defending humanoids from alien abductions. Fly your ship across a scrolling landscape, blasting enemies and saving innoc...

Stunt Car Racer is an abandoned first-person 3D perspective racing game designed by Geoffrey J. Crammond, developed and released by Microstyle in 1989 for DOS and many other platfo...

Karateka is a martial arts themed action / fighting game released by Broderbund in 1986 for DOS. Karateka is the first game designed by Jordan Mechner, the father of the ...

Ah, B.A.T. 2, the cyberpunk sequel that decided the future needed more trench coats, tech jargon, and inexplicably confusing interfaces. Released in 1992 for DOS, this game throws ...

Army Men 2 doubles down on everything from the first game - more weapons, more plastic carnage, more trips to “The Real World” where you fight in bathtubs and backyards...

Step into Crazy Nick’s Leisure Suit Larry Casino and leave your wallet safe—only your pride is at stake here. Larry Laffer, king of questionable fashion, hosts a digita...

If you’ve ever thought, “What if Pac-Man got lost in a modernist art gallery?”, then A-Maze is your oddly specific dream come true. Released in 1989 for DOS, this...

Released in 1984, Hack is one of those games that quietly shaped an entire genre while pretending not to care if you understood it or not. This early roguelike doesn’t bother...

Taito’s Puzznic (1990) takes the idea of matching tiles and injects a surprising amount of strategy. You slide blocks to align pairs, but each move requires forethought&mdash...

Deskmate is a software suite developed by Tandy Corporation that provided a graphical user interface (GUI) and a set of applications for personal computers. It was often bundled wi...

Fidelity Chessmaster 2100, released in 1989 for DOS, is chess with a very clear mission: beat you, patiently and without mercy. At the time, it was a serious achievement in compute...

In Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Sierra took the Wild West and decided it needed more jokes, more puns, and significantly more medical malpractice. Released in 1993, this po...

Strap in and crawl through the mud - Airborne Ranger (1988) is here to chew bubblegum and infiltrate enemy lines. And it's all out of bubblegum. This tactical action game lets you ...

Amerzone is like stepping into a dream where logic is optional and atmosphere is everything. You play a journalist unraveling the mystery of a dying explorer’s last journey, ...

Myst is a classic puzzle-adventure video game that was first released in 1993. It was developed by Cyan, a small independent game development studio. The game was initially release...

If you like your RPGs verbose, Betrayal at Krondor is basically a fantasy novel you play. Set in Raymond E. Feist’s Midkemia, the game oozes with narrative depth, detailed ch...

Aaargh (1988) is exactly what you’ll scream as your giant monster stomps through cities with all the grace of a drunk kaiju. On DOS, this arcade-ish game lets you smash stuff...

Omega (1989, DOS) is what happens when someone hands you a robot, a wrench, and a thick manual, then says, “Good luck out there.” Instead of piloting a mech, you actual...

Elvira 2: The Jaws of Cerberus doubles down on everything that made the first game memorable: horror, humor, and puzzles that seem designed to mock you. Elvira herself steals the s...

There are games with subtle titles, and then there is Fuck Quest, which clearly decided subtlety was overrated. Released in 1998 for DOS, it belongs to that peculiar era when share...

Action Fighter (1989, DOS) is Sega’s way of saying, “Why choose between car chases and aerial dogfights when you can have both?” You start in a motorcycle, grab s...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is a geopolitical strategy game developed by Chris Crawford and released in 1985. It is considered a classic in the genre of political and strate...

Ecstatica is a haunting anomaly in the DOS library, blending early 3D visuals with a dark fairy-tale atmosphere. Its polygonal characters may look crude by modern standards, but th...