abandonware games sorted by popularity

Pole Position II is a 1988 DOS racing game based on the classic arcade formula, bringing high-speed Formula One action to home computers. Players race around tracks while managing ...

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...

In Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes, the stakes go from “oops, stranded on Mars” to “uh-oh, Earth is doomed.” The Vorticons have planted death lasers in...

Hook brings the world of Peter Pan into video game form, blending platforming with a light sense of adventure. Released in 1992, it captures the whimsical tone of its source materi...

Emperor of the Fading Suns is a grand strategy game that looks at you and assumes you’ve cleared your schedule. Politics, religion, warfare, economics—it’s all he...

PHM Pegasus is a 1987 naval simulation that places players in command of a modern hydrofoil missile ship. The game focuses on controlling the vessel, managing weapons, and completi...

In Lucky Luke (1997, Windows), the fastest gun in the West is also the funniest. Based on the beloved Belgian comic, the game mixes platforming and slapstick as Luke outsmarts band...

Oxyd is a 1992 puzzle game built around a deceptively simple concept: move objects, solve problems, and somehow avoid making the situation much more complicated than it needs to be...

Castles 2 took everything the first game did and cranked it up with actual diplomacy, espionage, and conquest mechanics. Now you’re not just stacking bricks—you’r...

Released in 1993, Sexy Fighter entered the fighting genre with confidence and enough outrageous humor to make it stand apart from more serious competitors. Matches were straightfor...

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...

Before Doomguy started ripping and tearing, there was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. A stealth game where sneaking is mandatory, disguises are fashionable, and stabbing Nazis is encour...

Strip Poker 2 takes the familiar poker format and adds the particular incentive suggested by its title. Beneath the novelty, however, there is still a straightforward card game bas...

Tornado is a detailed combat flight simulator that asks considerably more from the player than simply pointing an aircraft at the nearest target. Based around the Panavia Tornado, ...

If text adventures are your thing, Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative (1985, DOS) will either delight or destroy you. You type commands to guide Kirk and crew through a no-win sc...

Before WWII games flooded the market, Knights of the Desert (1983, DOS) was already reenacting the North African campaign in pixels. You command Rommel’s Afrika Korps—o...

Eishockey Manager is proof that spreadsheets can, in fact, be thrilling—if you really love ice hockey. Released in 1993, this is a hardcore management sim that skips the flas...

Before James Bond was saving the world with cinematic flair, he was crashing pixelated helicopters in 007: License to Kill. This top-down action game takes the movie and crams it i...

The Settlers II: Veni, Vidi, Vici takes everything that worked in the original and polishes it until it shines like a freshly forged sword. The graphics are warmer, the maps are bi...

Stonekeep is a first-person fantasy dungeon crawler with an appropriately unpleasant central premise: the kingdom has been attacked, evil has taken over, and you are expected to cl...

Dungeon Hack is a dungeon-crawling role-playing game (RPG) developed by DreamForge Intertainment and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). It was released in 1993 for MS-...

Before Command & Conquer, there was Command HQ (1990, DOS/Mac)—an early RTS that said “what if we made World War III playable?” It’s global domination m...

As its title boldly suggests, Late Night Sexy TV Show arrived in 1994 as an adult-themed trivia and quiz game that relies more on playful humor than genuine scandal. Players answer...

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? If that line doesn’t make you want to punch a ninja through a hotdog stand, nothing will. Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja is peak...

Forget muscle cars and highways—Detroit (1994) is all about running your own automobile empire. Starting in the early 20th century, you’ll design cars, juggle productio...

Atlantis: The Lost Tales is a graphic adventure game developed by Cryo Interactive and released in 1997. It is the first in a series of games set around the legendary lost city of ...

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...

MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries is a standalone expansion to MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, released in 1996 by Activision. Part of the larger BattleTech universe, the game puts pl...

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 ...

The name Carnage says it all—this top-down racer is less about precision driving and more about smashing into your enemies until they resemble digital roadkill. It’s fa...