abandonware games sorted by popularity

As sequels go, Serpent Isle is less “more of the same” and more “everything is different, good luck.” Shipwrecked on a strange new land, you’ll deal with political intrigue, bizarre magical phenomena,...

Nebulus, also known as Tower Toppler in some regions, is a classic video game released in the 1980s. It was developed by John M. Phillips and published by Hewson Consultants. The game was initially released for various home comput...

In Breakers, you're a high-tech wrecking crew with a mission: break stuff. Computers, walls, enemy morale—whatever gets in your way. Released in 1986, it feels like a mutant crossbreed of action game and low-budget sci-fi mo...

Ah, the late '90s: when cars exploded for no reason and acronyms made everything cooler. Axelerator: Have a N.I.C.E. day! is a 1997 Windows racer that asks, “What if racing was less about realism and more about chucking miss...

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 in deep space while solving the mystery of what hap...

Drakkhen (1989) was weird—wonderfully, gloriously weird. A 3D RPG before 3D was really ready, it let you roam a strange fantasy world full of surreal landscapes, bizarre enemies, and sudden, often unfair deaths. The polygona...

Forget Freddy’s razor glove for a second - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989) for DOS is terrifying in its own way. Mostly because of the controls. You play as a teen trying to stay awake and alive while navigating dreamscapes...

Shadow President is a geopolitical simulation video game developed by DC True in 1993 for MS-DOS. In Shadow President, players take on the role of the President of the United States, tasked with managing both domestic and internat...

Before Gettysburg, there was Decision in the Desert (1985), which simulates WWII’s North African campaign. Expect hex maps, endless sand, and the occasional tank battle that feels like a chess match with explosions. SSI&rsqu...

Ninja Gaiden, released in 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and later to other platforms, is a side-scrolling action-platformer developed by Tecmo. It follows the story of Ryu Hayabusa, a skilled ninja on a quest fo...

StarCraft is a classic RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released in 1998 for Windows and Macintosh. StarCraft takes the Warcraft experience to a sci-fi setting with an interesting story, three ...

By 1994, digging had evolved from arcade twitch action to full-on economic warfare. Diggers on DOS turned mining into a cutthroat competition between quirky alien races, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and distinctly od...

In Auf Wiedersehen Monty, our favorite marsupial is back, and this time he's taking a very pixelated Eurotrip. Released for Windows XP in 2001, it's a nostalgia-fueled platformer that insists you master gravity-defying jumps and m...

American Conquest is the kind of game that throws hundreds of little soldiers at you and says, "Good luck, General!" Set during the early colonization of the Americas, this RTS blends history with chaos in a way that’s both ...

The Magic Candle 2 (1991, DOS) expands the world, story, and ambition of its predecessor. With forty heroes scattered across a sprawling realm, you’ll spend as much time managing logistics as saving the world. The writing is...

Released in 1987, this game has you waking up in a toilet stall with no memory of who you are. As detective Ace Harding, you must clear your name and restore your memories. It's like a bad dream you can't wake up from, but with mo...

Castles is what happens when SimCity meets Game of Thrones. You design your own fortress, manage the budget, and tell unruly peasants why the walls are more important than food. Between building bricks and issuing royal edicts, yo...

If you ever wanted to command the Pacific fleet without getting wet, Carrier Strike is your game. Set during WWII, it’s a turn-based wargame where numbers, radar, and weather reports matter more than reflexes. You’ll p...

Released in 1987, this is less of a simulator and more of a fever dream where you pilot a flying box over a grid pretending to be terrain. 3-D Helicopter Simulator was ambitious for its time, with wireframe graphics that suggest a...