abandonware games sorted by popularity

D-Zone is what you’d get if someone blended city-building with military strategy and sprinkled in a dash of chaos. You’re tasked with running a base while fending off a...

Space 1889 (1990, DOS) is steampunk before steampunk was cool. Based on the tabletop RPG, it sends you to an alternate Victorian era where the British Empire has expanded — t...

Karadoc’s back, and apparently inflation hit the dungeon economy hard—he wants his gold! Cadaver: The Payoff is less a sequel and more a direct continuation, like findi...

Turbo OutRun is an abandoned DOS action racing game set in North America, developed and published by Sega in 1990. Turbo OutRun is a conversion from the arcade classic of the same ...

Quest for Glory III: Wages of War is an adventure/role-playing game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1992. The player takes on the role of the Hero, who has journe...

Part strategy, part fantasy empire builder, Realms gives you a continent to wrangle and a surprising number of ways to embarrass yourself. You recruit armies, juggle rebellious pop...

Jump 'n Bump proves that rabbits can be surprisingly competitive. Released in 1998, this multiplayer-focused platform game pits adorable bunnies against one another in frantic matc...

In 1988, kids with floppy disks instead of smartphones got Designasaurus, a quirky blend of education and prehistoric fantasy. The premise: design your own dinosaur and see if it s...

X-Men 2: The Fall of the Mutants is a curious blend of action and light strategy, where Marvel’s famous mutants get to stretch their powers across a series of loosely connected m...

Archery (1985) is what happens when someone says, “Hey, what if we made a bow-and-arrow game with the graphical fidelity of a cave painting?” You shoot arrows. That&rsq...

Stormlord is a colorful fantasy platform adventure in which the title character has the rather unpleasant job of rescuing magical creatures and confronting an assortment of hostile...

Castles is what happens when SimCity meets Game of Thrones. You design your own fortress, manage the budget, and tell unruly peasants why the walls are more important than food. Be...

X-COM: Terror from the Deep (also known as X-COM 2) is a DOS science fiction tactical strategy game and the sequel to one of the most popular DOS games in history, X-COM: UFO ...

Universe, released in 1994, is an adventure game that leans heavily into its sci-fi setting, offering a world that feels both imaginative and slightly surreal. You’ll spend a lot...

Screamer (1995) was the moment when PC gamers realized DOS could, in fact, go fast. A blistering arcade racer inspired by Daytona USA, it delivered glossy graphics, roaring engines...

Push-Push Penguin is an expanded version of the classic Sega's 1982 arcade game Pengo, incorporating features like power-ups, a combo system, and a more diverse array of enemies, b...

Murders in Space takes detective fiction beyond Earth, placing players in a futuristic setting where solving a murder requires investigating an environment with rather fewer conven...

Mortal Kombat 2 takes the original formula and turns the intensity up several notches with more fighters, new arenas, additional special moves, and an even greater supply of specta...

Welcome to the skies of World War II, where dogfights are fast, fuel is low, and you probably forgot to raise your landing gear. Battlehawks 1942 (1988) is a flight sim with just e...

Zeitgeist — also known as Jupiter Strike in some markets — is a PlayStation-era space shooter that boldly says: "Let’s do Star Fox, but with less personality and ...

WaxWorks (1992, DOS/Mac) is a horror game that doesn’t just want to scare you—it wants to traumatize you a little. Set in cursed wax museum exhibits, each scenario drop...

In Armor Alley, you command a helicopter in a warzone that looks like a side-scrolling office meeting gone wrong. It’s strategy meets action: you must manage resources, deplo...

By 1989, Dragon’s Lair had already become legendary in arcades, so its DOS port had a lot to live up to. Spoiler: it couldn’t quite match the arcade’s gorgeous la...

Star General is a 1996 turn-based strategy game that takes the familiar mechanics of military campaigns and moves them into a science-fiction setting. Players command futuristic ar...

Rollo and the Brush Brothers is a 1983 DOS game with an unusual premise and the kind of experimental spirit that characterized early home-computer software. Players guide Rollo thr...

Released in 1994, Jagged Alliance helped define tactical turn-based strategy long before every game wanted to be an open-world crafting survival experience. Set on the troubled isl...

Chicago, 1920s. You’ve got a tommy gun, a fedora, and a score to settle. Capone is part gangster sim, part shooting gallery, and part fever dream. The graphics are muddy, the...

Enclave is a dark fantasy action game that feels slightly out of time, in both good and bad ways. Its world is grim, its tone serious, and its combat intentionally weighty. You&rsq...