abandonware games sorted by popularity

Street Sports Soccer (1988, DOS) trades professional pitches for empty lots, with goalposts made of bricks and wild kids chasing glory. It’s messy, fast, and surprisingly end...

Plundered Hearts is a 1987 interactive fiction adventure from Infocom that combines romance, pirates, and high-seas drama into a charming text-based story. Players take the role of...

In Extremis from 1993 is one of those lesser-known titles that surprises players with its ambition. Mixing action and strategy, it places you in dangerous situations where quick th...

Sid Meier took one look at Earth and said, “Let’s leave this dump.” Thus, Alpha Centauri (1999, Windows XP) was born - a 4X strategy game that takes Civilization ...

Sharkey’s 3D Pool (1990, DOS) delivers billiards with a dash of personality, proving that even virtual felt can have flair. The 3D perspective was impressive for its time, gi...

SimHealth is a 1994 DOS simulation that tackles the complicated subject of healthcare management. Players take on the role of a decision-maker responsible for balancing healthcare ...

Pizza Tycoon is a 1994 business simulation that asks a very important question: can you build a pizza empire while dealing with competition, customers, and the occasional questiona...

If gravity had a sense of humor, it would look like Bounce Zone. This 1990 DOS oddball is part platformer, part physics experiment, and part unintentional comedy. You bounce. A lot...

If you’ve ever wanted to command a basketball team without having to actually dribble or break a sweat, Omni Play Basketball (1990, DOS) has your number. The game lets you ma...

If Risk and Excel had a baby during WWII, it would be Clash of Steel. You command nations, move armies, manage production, and try to stop history from repeating itself—usual...

In Corporate Raider: The Pirate of Wall Street, you’re not sailing the high seas—you’re sinking companies from the comfort of an office chair. This business simul...

Mindshadow presents a mysterious adventure in which the protagonist awakens with no memory and must gradually reconstruct his identity by exploring an unfamiliar world. The game co...

The Terminator: Future Shock takes the Terminator universe into first-person 3D and does considerably more than simply provide another excuse to shoot robots. Set in a devastated f...

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...

MiG-29M Super Fulcrum offers another chance to take control of a powerful Soviet fighter aircraft in a fast-paced simulation focused on aerial combat. Players must master flight co...

In Infidel, you play a not-so-noble adventurer whose moral compass is spinning like a broken ceiling fan. As a treasure-hungry explorer poking around an ancient Egyptian tomb, you ...

If Saturday-morning cartoons and B-movies fused into a pixelated arcade blast, you’d get Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters. This action shooter throws you onto a d...

Trivial Pursuit brings the familiar board-game quiz format to the computer, replacing cardboard, tiny coloured wedges, and argumentative relatives with a keyboard and a screen. The...

Virus is a fast, strange little arcade game that feels as though someone took a futuristic flying machine, dropped it into a hostile landscape, and then removed any concern for sen...

Icewind Dale arrived in 2000 as a frosty sibling to the Baldur's Gate formula, trading political intrigue for glorious dungeon crawling in the forgotten corners of the Forgotten Re...

In Blackstar: Agent of Justice (1995), you play a noir-style detective in a trench coat so dramatic it probably has its own union. Set in a dark, crime-ridden city where everyone t...

Colosso Secret (1997, DOS) is the moody prequel/sequel/parallel universe to Colosso Revenge, where secrets abound and subtlety is tossed out the window. Imagine Indiana Jones in a ...

Vectorball is a futuristic sports game that takes the basic idea of ball games and throws it into a neon-soaked science-fiction arena. Players compete in fast-moving matches where ...

Infocom released Leather Goddesses of Phobos in 1986, delivering one of the most humorous and memorable text adventures ever written. Rather than taking science fiction seriously, ...

Dungeons of Kroz 2 didn’t reinvent the wheel—it sharpened it and rolled it over your face. Released the same year as the original, it’s tougher, faster, and even ...

Douglas Adams, the twisted genius behind Hitchhiker’s Guide, brings you the most terrifying adventure of all: paperwork. Bureaucracy turns mundane modern life into a text-bas...

Chrono Quest II is a science-fiction adventure that combines exploration, puzzles, strange worlds, and the usual hazards of wandering around somewhere the locals probably wish you ...

Summer Challenge turns the excitement of international athletics into a collection of computer events where timing, rhythm, and frantic button pressing can determine whether you be...

Super Solvers: Treasure Cove combines educational challenges with the classic appeal of searching for treasure. Players explore colorful locations, solve problems, answer questions...

Time to hit the lanes in 10th Frame, a bowling simulator so committed to realism it even simulates the wait between turns. You line up your shot, set your spin, and pray the ancien...