abandonware games sorted by popularity

Vette! is a driving game built around the unmistakable spectacle of cruising a high-performance Corvette through San Francisco. Instead of confining you to a neat racing circuit, t...

Space Quest 4: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers takes the series into the wonderfully chaotic territory of time travel. Released in 1991, it gleefully tosses Roger across multiple ...

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to drive very fast in what looks like a PowerPoint presentation with a need for speed, 240 Racing from 1998 delivers the thrill. ...

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 enem...

Shooting Gallery is a 1990 DOS action game built around the simple and immediately understandable pleasure of aiming at targets and trying to hit them. Players face a variety of sh...

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...

Hexen: Beyond Heretic expands on its predecessor with a confidence that borders on theatrical. The world is darker, the puzzles more intricate, and the overall experience richer, t...

Do you find spreadsheets thrilling? Does the idea of profit margins make your heart race? Then Business Simulator is your kind of party. It’s all about running a faceless com...

Nuclear War is an abandoned turn-based strategy game designed by Eric Hyman and Jon Van Caneghem. Nuclear War was developed and released by New World Computing in 1989 for Amiga an...

President Elect: 1988 Edition is a political simulation game that allows players to experience the excitement, pressure, and occasional chaos of running a presidential campaign. Re...

Virtual Reality Studio 2.0 builds on the idea of creating interactive three-dimensional environments, offering a more advanced version of the DOS development environment introduced...

Welcome aboard, Captain! Advanced Destroyer Simulator throws you into the high seas with all the firepower and radar beeps a '90s DOS machine can handle. Manage torpedoes, dodge de...

NHL 96 is a 1995 hockey game that brings the speed, physicality, and occasional chaos of professional ice hockey to the computer screen. Players can take control of teams and compe...

The Dig is a thoughtful science-fiction adventure from LucasArts that sends a small group of explorers to an alien world after a mysterious object is discovered near Earth. What be...

Tomb Raider introduced Lara Croft to a generation of players and combined third-person exploration, platforming, puzzle solving and gunplay into a remarkably atmospheric adventure....

Before its sequel, there was Dark Reign: The Future of War (1997), a forward-thinking RTS that introduced mechanics ahead of its time, like customizable AI scripts for units. The r...

In 1998, Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War decided the world needed fewer corridors and more cosmic dogfights. Instead of bumping into walls like a drunken astronaut, you&rs...

Virtual Pool is one of those pool simulations that takes the humble act of hitting a few colored balls and turns it into a surprisingly serious business. Released in 1995, it offer...

Strip Poker: A Sizzling Game of Chance is an early example of the adult computer-game genre, taking ordinary poker and adding a rather more provocative incentive to win. The card g...

If Lorna were a comic book, it would be the kind your parents warned you about. Based on the Spanish sci-fi heroine by Alfonso Azpiri, this 1990 action-platformer on DOS is a cockt...

The sequel nobody asked for, but we’re still kinda glad happened. California Games 2 adds even weirder sports: jet-skiing, hang gliding, and bodyboarding, which is like surfi...

The Amazon Trail is an educational adventure that sends you down the Amazon River with considerably less certainty about what you are doing than the title might suggest. Released i...

Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds expands on the original with more content and a broader scope, as if the developers decided one world was simply not enough. The gameplay remain...

Ever wanted to get chess lessons from a genius who could crush your soul with a bishop and a glare? Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess (1994, DOS) is your chance. Based on the classic boo...

Created by devoted fans, Maniac Mansion Deluxe lovingly rebuilds the Lucasfilm classic with improved graphics, modern conveniences, and remarkable respect for the original adventur...

In Ancients 1: Deathwatch, you gather your pixelated party and set off to cleanse a city of evil, or at least try not to get mugged by slimes. It's a dungeon crawler in classic DOS...

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...

A remake with ambition and tragedy, Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded promised to bring the king back in modern glory. It looked great, played smooth, and... was never officially released. W...

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...

Borland Turbo C v2 built on the foundations of the first Turbo C release and became another popular tool for DOS programmers who wanted a fast, compact C development environment. T...