abandonware games sorted by popularity

Also known as Puzzle Bobble, this bubble-popping classic stars those cute dragons from Bubble Bobble, now in competitive puzzle mode. Match three colors, clear the screen, panic as...

The Hound of Shadow is a dark interactive fiction adventure inspired by the atmosphere of supernatural detective stories and cosmic horror. The player investigates mysterious event...

Mad Paradox embraces surrealism with remarkable enthusiasm, presenting an action-platform adventure where strange creatures and bizarre environments are perfectly normal. Players m...

Microsoft Space Simulator is a space flight simulator game developed by Bruce Artwick Organization and published by Microsoft in 1994. It is part of the broader range of simulation...

Questprobe Featuring Spider-Man is a 1986 adventure game that puts the world’s most famous web-slinger into a computer-generated mystery filled with exploration, puzzles, and the...

A text/graphic adventure from 1986 for DOS and Mac, Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy is the precursor to Kobayashi Alternative but far more playable. You explore alien worlds, so...

Might and Magic: World of Xeen is what happens when two already massive RPGs decide to shake hands and merge into one enormous adventure. By combining Clouds of Xeen and Darkside o...

Sargon V: World Class Chess is a 1991 DOS chess program designed for players who want a serious digital opponent rather than a casual board-game diversion. The game provides a stro...

The Terminator: Rampage puts you behind the controls of a combat vehicle in a future where humanity's relationship with Skynet has gone about as badly as expected. The game combine...

Turns out war is a lot tidier when it’s turn-based. Battle Isle (1991) gives you neat little hexagons to move your units on, like a very angry board game. It’s got stra...

Ah, 2400 A.D. A game where you can rebel against a robot police state… by slowly walking around in beige. Released in 1988, it’s what happens when you mix Orwellian dy...

Becoming a Renaissance ruler is complicated enough without everyone around you plotting something. Machiavelli the Prince transforms politics into an engaging strategy game where d...

Released in 1991, Logical proves that moving colored spheres through intricate puzzle layouts can become surprisingly addictive. Every stage challenges players to think carefully a...

Before “yippee-ki-yay” became gaming shorthand for chaos, Die Hard (1989) tried to capture the movie’s skyscraper shootout on DOS. You play as John McClane, trapp...

Released in 1994 (long after it originally debuted on other platforms), Ant Attack! is what you get when you mix isometric graphics, giant ants, and questionable urban planning. Yo...

Super Solvers: OutNumbered! takes arithmetic and turns it into a frantic chase against villains, proving that mathematics becomes considerably more interesting when somebody is try...

Atomix is a tile-based puzzle game released in 1990 by Thalion Software for platforms like Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and Commodore 64. The objective of Atomix is to assemble mo...

Indianapolis 500 in 1989 was one of the earliest racing simulators to take itself very seriously, and that seriousness paid off. Rather than arcade thrills, it focused on realism, ...

The Colony is a first-person science-fiction adventure that combines exploration, combat, puzzles, and a surprisingly lonely atmosphere. Set on an alien world, it gives the player ...

Blades of Steel is hockey the way it was meant to be. Fast, brutal, and occasionally resembling a bar fight on ice. The game lets you punch other players mid-match and the announce...

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 ...

Prehistorik 2 builds on the first game’s formula but smooths out the rough edges. The controls are tighter, the levels more inventive, and the humor dialed up a notch. Once a...

City of Lost Children is as beautiful as it is bewildering. Based on the surreal 1995 film, this adventure game drops you into a dark, oily dystopia filled with creepy orphans, biz...

Running a television station sounds glamorous until every program threatens to destroy your ratings. Mad TV cleverly blends business simulation, humor, and sabotage into an addicti...

The Grandest Fleet is a naval strategy game that puts the player in charge of ships, fleets, and the complicated business of winning battles at sea without accidentally sending hal...

If Speedball was a fistfight on skates, Speedball 2 is a televised riot with endorsements. More teams, more power-ups, more everything. The game’s slogan might as well be &ld...

Ragnarok is a 1993 fantasy role-playing game that combines exploration, combat, character development, and Norse mythology into a substantial adventure. Players guide their charact...

Lords of Doom, released in 1990, wears its dark fantasy influences proudly and with very little restraint. Everything about the game feels intense, from the name to the atmosphere,...

Galaxy is a relic from the early days of PC gaming, when the idea of exploring space could be conveyed with a handful of pixels and a lot of imagination. The gameplay is simple, re...

Mario Bros VGA brings Nintendo's famous plumbers to DOS with colorful VGA graphics and an experience that faithfully recreates the frantic arcade original. The objective remains wo...