abandonware games sorted by popularity

F-15 Strike Eagle II takes everything that made the original a classic and cranks it up like a jet engine at full throttle. The visuals are sharper, the missions are more varied, a...

You are Sherlock Holmes, and someone has committed a crime, possibly because they couldn’t handle the game’s UI. 221B Baker Street is a detective board game where your ...

First Samurai is a classic action-platformer game originally released in 1991. The game was initially available on the Amiga and Atari ST, with later ports to the Commodore 64, DOS...

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 ...

Creatures Village trades explosions for adorable AI pets in a colorful sandbox world. You raise, teach, and care for Norns—genetically simulated cuties with personalities as ...

Caution: subtlety not included. Blue Angel 69, released in 1989 for DOS, is basically what happens when a programmer tries to mix erotic art with a tile-based puzzle game and ends ...

If you’ve ever looked at Tetris and thought, “This needs to be in 3D and way harder,” then BlockOut 2 (2000) is your kind of punishment. This brain-melter takes f...

Few games capture the feeling of “the galaxy is huge and you are spectacularly insignificant” quite like Frontier: Elite 2. Released in 1993, this ambitious sequel thro...

By the time Duke Nukem II rolled around, Duke had found his groove—and his ego. The gameplay is tighter, the explosions bigger, and the quips slightly more self-aware. It&rsq...

Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0 (MSFS 4.0) is a flight simulation game released by Microsoft in 1989 for MS-DOS. It was the fourth major version of the Microsoft Flight Simulator se...

If you ever wanted to play a video game that doubles as a philosophical think piece, A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) is your ride. Released for DOS and Macintosh, this is one of Inf...

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 ...

If you ever wanted to run a football club without leaving your chair, The Manager (1991, DOS) delivers. This early management sim lets you buy players, balance budgets, and suffer ...

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...

Before Worms, before Scorched Earth, there was Tank Wars. Two or more tanks perched on random hills, firing explosive math problems at each other. Adjust your angle, set your power...

Premier Manager 2 polished the formula, giving football nerds even more stats to obsess over. If you thought juggling line-ups and balancing books was fun in the first game, this s...

Before Virtua Tennis, there was this: 4D Sports Tennis, where physics and pixels politely shake hands and then forget why they were introduced. Released in 1990 for DOS, this game ...

Released in 1996, Discworld 2: Mortality Bytes! continues the misadventures of Rincewind, who once again proves that cowardice can be a powerful survival tool. This time, Death has...

Gold of the Americas: The Conquest of the New World is a strategy game that invites you to rewrite history, usually by making the same mistakes but with more confidence. You manage...

Environmental doom simulator? Check. Grim statistics? Double check. Balance of the Planet lets you tinker with carbon emissions, wildlife extinction, and deforestation until you ei...