abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before Street Fighter became a cultural juggernaut, it was this humble 1988 DOS brawler where Ryu’s fists felt more like sluggish bricks than blazing fireballs. The controls ...

Moonbase (1990) isn’t about blasting aliens or dodging meteors—it’s about survival, planning, and resource management. You’re tasked with building a functio...

Strategy enthusiasts looking for a detailed World War II simulation will find plenty to appreciate in MacArthur's War. Focusing on the Pacific theater, the game challenges players ...

Donald’s Alphabet Chase is the video game equivalent of hiding fridge magnets and watching a duck hunt them down. In this 1988 edutainment title, the mischievous alphabet let...

If pro wrestling in the '80s had a fever dream after drinking too much neon paint, it would be called Bop'N Wrestle (1988, DOS). You play as Gorgeous Greg, who’s about as gor...

B-17 Flying Fortress (1992) is the kind of game where you don't just fly the plane—you are the plane. One moment you're the pilot, the next you're the nose gunner swatting Lu...

Step right up to At the Carnival (1990), a puzzle game that mixes traditional brain-teasers with the kind of carnival theming that makes you question whether the developers had eve...

Conqueror is what happens when a tank simulator and an arcade game go on a date and forget their purpose. You drive a tank in a pseudo-3D landscape, blow up stuff, and command squa...

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...

Forbidden Quest (1983, DOS) belongs to that early era when imagination did most of the heavy lifting. Sparse visuals and text-driven cues invite you to picture grand dangers lurkin...

Normality is a first-person adventure video game developed by Gremlin Interactive and released in 1996. The game is set in a dystopian future where a totalitarian regime known as t...

Doomdark's Revenge is a strategy and role-playing video game developed by Mike Singleton and originally released in 1985 for DOS and various home computer systems, including the ZX...

The Temple of Elemental Evil is a computer role-playing game (CRPG) released in 2003 by Troika Games and published by Atari. The game is set in the World of Greyhawk, one of D...

Gorillas, also known as "Gorillas.bas," is a turn-based artillery game that was included as a sample program with Microsoft QBasic, an IDE and interpreter for a variant of the...

Magic: The Gathering Interactive Encyclopedia is an abandoned "educational" application and turn-based strategy game based on he Magic: The Gathering collectible card game. MT...

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...

Galaxian is one of those early arcade classics that proved space shooters didn’t need complicated rules to be thrilling. Instead of aliens politely marching in formation, the...

Italy 1990 captures the football fever of the World Cup with arcade-style simplicity and competitive energy. Released during the tournament itself, it thrives on accessibility and ...

Alien Legacy (1994) is like SimCity crashed into Star Trek and nobody called the insurance company. It’s a real-time strategy/simulation game that has you managing a colony i...

Hexxagon 2 builds on the original with subtle improvements that make the experience feel more polished without losing its core appeal. The gameplay remains as addictive as ever, en...

Monopoly Deluxe is an abandoned turn-based top-down Monopoly adaptation  of the classic board game, developed by Parker Brothers and released by Virgin Interactive in 1992. Mo...

If you ever wanted to fly a helicopter that looks like it belongs in a Michael Bay fever dream, Comanche: Maximum Overkill (1992, DOS) is for you. This voxel-powered beast puts you...

Building on its predecessor, Labyrinth of Worlds expands the formula by throwing you across multiple dimensions. Each world has its own flavor—icy wastelands, alien landscape...

If Star Trek: 25th Anniversary isn’t on your DOS nostalgia list, fix that now. Released in 1992, it’s a point-and-click adventure that actually feels like classic Star ...

Yes, it’s that Beethoven—the slobbery St. Bernard, not the piano guy. In Beethoven 2, you control a surprisingly agile dog on a quest to rescue your kidnapped puppies. ...

Acheton (1987, DOS) is one of those text adventures where the game cheerfully tries to kill you every five minutes — and does so with words. You're tossed into a sprawling, b...