abandonware games sorted by popularity

Ever dreamt of running ancient Rome without the toga chafing? Caesar hands you the reins of a budding province and expects you to not burn it to the ground—ideally. This city...

Operation Getafix (1989) is what happens when you turn a beloved comic series into a game with the precision of a wild boar wearing gloves. You play as Asterix on a quest to help G...

Released in 1983, Moon Patrol is the game that proved moon driving is a terrible career choice. You control a buggy with a suspension system that would make NASA jealous, jumping o...

This 1996 point-and-click western is what you’d get if Lucky Luke and Monkey Island had an awkward but lovable baby. 3 Skulls of the Toltecs throws you into a spaghetti weste...

After publishing a plethora of Gold Box titles, SSI decided to release a fantasy RPG based on the Forgotten Realms scenarios of Dungeons & Dragons where the player could create...

Ken's Labyrinth throws players into twisting mazes packed with monsters, hidden rooms, colorful textures, and enough secret passages to keep even the most determined explorer suspi...

Aspar GP Master is a 1989 motorcycle racing game that invites you to tear up the track with the same grace and control as a caffeinated squirrel on rollerblades. Loosely inspired b...

SLASH'EM (Super Lotsa Added Stuff Hack - Extended Magic) is a roguelike game based on NetHack, one of the most famous dungeon-crawling games of all time. It expands upon NetHack 3....

Independence War takes space combat seriously, almost stubbornly so. Instead of arcade-style dogfights, it presents a Newtonian flight model where momentum, inertia, and positionin...

Back in 1992, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel set the bar for pixelated deduction. A famous actress is dead, and every gentleman in London seems...

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...

Shamus is a maze action game developed by William Mataga and published by Synapse Software in 1982. The game became popular on various home computer platforms of the early 1980s. I...

Released in 1992, Links 386 Pro elevated computer golf with remarkably realistic ball physics, detailed courses, and an interface designed for serious simulation enthusiasts. Every...

Ground Control throws you into real-time strategy without the safety net of base building, which is both refreshing and slightly terrifying. In Ground Control, every unit matters, ...

Boulder Dash II is the sequel to the original Boulder Dash game. It was released in 1985 and follows the same basic gameplay mechanics as its predecessor while introducing new leve...

Before realistic fighting games, there was Boxer Rebellion—a 1982 title so primitive, it makes Pong look flashy. It’s boxing with fewer rules and more pixels per punch....

Destruction Derby (1995) is the game that taught us driving isn’t about speed or elegance—it’s about gleefully ramming your car into other vehicles until only twi...

Speedball is like hockey, but with more metal, more violence, and fewer rules. It’s future-sport brutality where scoring goals is optional—knocking opponents unconsciou...

In Black Crown (1995), you play as a prince with a very punchable name, trying to reclaim his rightful throne by solving puzzles and dying a lot. It's one of those DOS-era games wh...

The last entry in Infocom’s Enchanter trilogy, Spellbreaker is where the training wheels come off. It’s unforgiving, cryptic, and expects you to understand spellcraft l...

Shadowlands (1992, DOS) hands you a party of adventurers and then expects you to coordinate them like a fantasy air-traffic controller. Instead of a single hero, you manage four ch...

Now with 27% more diplomacy and 300% more frustration! Axis and Allies: Iron Blitz (1999) takes everything from the original game and throws in extra scenarios, improved AI, and mo...

Armour-Geddon is what you get when someone combines Wargames with a midlife crisis. Set in a post-nuke world where you pilot tanks, helicopters, and laser cannons to stop a doomsda...

If Hamlet had a sequel directed by a DOS programmer, Castle Elsinore would be it. This interactive fiction game drops you right into Shakespearean drama with murder, betrayal, and ...