The most popular abandonware sports games

Sid Meier's SimGolf is a 2002 management game that combines golf with the wonderfully dangerous temptation to micromanage absolutely everything. Players design and build their own ...

Back in 1992, Sensible Soccer arrived and proved that football games did not need dozens of buttons or endless realism to become addictive. Tiny players with oversized heads sprint...

Released in 1989, Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs is pure old-school sports gaming: simple to learn, hard to master, and endlessly competitive. The presentation is minimal,...

Radical! Gnarly! And other 80s slang words! California Games is what happens when sports simulations meet neon-colored vibes and a love of spandex. You’ll hacky sack, BMX rac...

If nostalgia had a soundtrack, it might be Blur’s “Song 2,” forever tied to FIFA: Road to World Cup 98. This was the entry where the series suddenly felt cool, co...

Pub Pool brings billiards into the cozy, slightly smoky world of the British pub, although the computer naturally leaves out the sticky tables and mysterious carpet stains. The gam...

With FIFA Soccer 97, EA decided indoor soccer was exactly what the world had been waiting for, and honestly, they weren’t entirely wrong. The pace is frantic, the rebounds ar...

World Class Leader Board is a classic golf simulation that takes a fairly serious approach to the ancient art of hitting a tiny ball into a distant hole. Rather than turning golf i...

Premier Manager was released in 1992 by Gremlin Interactive for the Commodore Amiga and MS-DOS platforms. It was one of the earliest football management simulation games and allowe...

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 ...

There was a time when digitized sprites and surprisingly loud crowd noise felt like cutting-edge sports science, and FIFA Soccer 96 proudly lived in that moment. The big selling po...

The Games: Winter Challenge takes the multi-event sports formula onto snow and ice, offering a collection of winter competitions where timing and control are considerably more impo...

Ultimate Soccer Manager 98 puts the player on the other side of the touchline, where the biggest challenge is discovering that managing a football club is considerably more complic...

The final Championship Manager to grace DOS—and what a send-off. Season 97/98 is the fan-favorite for a reason: every transfer, every injury, every last-minute goal feels lik...

Before Football Manager made spreadsheets cool, there was Bundesliga Manager Professional, a game where managing a German football team involved more math than actual football. You...

Ski or Die is a winter sports-themed video game that was originally released in 1990 for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The game was developed by...

By the time Premier Manager 3 rolled around, the series had cemented its reputation as the thinking fan’s football fix. Released in 1994, it refined the formula once again, o...

John Madden Football was the first of a series of american football sports games sponsored by the coach of the same name. The first John Madden Football is an abandoned game develo...

Released in 1992, 3D World Boxing tried its best to bring the sweet science into the third dimension. The result is less Rocky and more “two mannequins in pajamas slap each o...

Ah, Advantage Tennis—where the graphics are flat, the physics are questionable, and the grunts are blessedly absent. This DOS-era sports sim serves up matches that somehow fe...

TV Sports: Boxing takes the sweet science and wraps it in a layer of showmanship that feels straight out of a late-night sports broadcast. Released in 1991, it emphasizes spectacle...

Microsoft Decathlon challenges players to compete in ten demanding track-and-field events, including running, jumping, throwing, and several activities specifically designed to mak...

Skate or Die is the embodiment of late-’80s “cool,” complete with neon chaos, absurdly dangerous skate events, and characters who look like they stepped out of a ...

When Links: The Challenge of Golf appeared in 1990, it immediately set new standards for realistic golf simulations. Beautifully designed courses, convincing physics, and carefully...

Shufflepuck Café is a 1989 DOS and Macintosh arcade game that takes air hockey into a wonderfully eccentric science-fiction setting. Instead of playing against ordinary humans in ...

Remember the spandex-clad madness of 90s TV? American Gladiators brings it to your DOS screen with all the grace of a flying pugil stick. You’ll compete in various bizarre ev...

Micheal Jordan in Flight takes basketball away from the court and into the sky, creating an unusual arcade experience centered around the legendary player. The concept is gloriousl...

Goal! is one of those football games that reminds you how far sports simulations have come—and how much fun they were before realism took over. The controls are simple, the p...

Welcome to the squared circle of wireframe pain. Released in 1991 for DOS, this game puts you in the gloves of a boxer rendered entirely out of jagged geometry. The animation was r...

Released in 1990, Kick Off 2 is one of those football games that politely refuses to hold your hand. The ball does not magically stick to your player, meaning every sprint becomes ...