abandonware games sorted by popularity

Army Men 2 doubles down on everything from the first game - more weapons, more plastic carnage, more trips to “The Real World” where you fight in bathtubs and backyards...

Rags to Riches is a 1993 DOS business simulation built around the classic dream of starting with almost nothing and ending up with a fortune. Players must make financial decisions,...

Trinity is one of Infocom's more unusual interactive fiction adventures, mixing fantasy, science fiction, surreal imagery, and a healthy dose of philosophical weirdness. You begin ...

Think of Aldo's Assault as what happens when Mario forgets his plumber license and joins a bootleg army. This 1991 DOS gem throws you into a side-scrolling frenzy of ladders, barre...

Surf Ninjas is exactly the sort of licensed game that sounds like somebody combined two unrelated ideas and decided not to ask questions. Released in 1994, it is based on the film ...

Worlds of Legend: Son of the Empire is an ambitious fantasy role-playing adventure that drops the player into a world of magic, danger and the usual assortment of people who urgent...

Panza Kick Boxing is a 1991 sports simulation that takes the brutal world of kickboxing seriously enough to reward technique while still remaining accessible to determined newcomer...

Extreme Pinball from 1995 takes a classic pastime and injects it with a generous dose of digital attitude. This isn’t a calm, gentlemanly pinball experience—it’s ...

IBM Fixed Disk Organizer is exactly the sort of utilitarian software that reveals how seriously early PC users had to take their storage. Released in 1983, it was designed to help ...

Legend of Cao Cao turns the turbulent history of ancient China into a tactical role-playing adventure centered on the famous warlord Cao Cao. Instead of simply marching armies arou...

Mickey's Space Adventure sends Mickey Mouse on an imaginative journey beyond Earth, blending exploration, storytelling, and educational elements into a charming computer adventure....

Netscape Navigator was one of the earliest web browsers that played a crucial role in popularizing the World Wide Web. It was developed by Netscape Communications Corporation and r...

If you’ve ever wanted to play interstellar Monopoly while arguing with alien neighbors, Deadlock: Planetary Conquest is your ticket. Released in 1996, this strategy gem tosse...

Midwinter creates a remarkable open-world survival adventure set across a vast frozen island, combining exploration, combat, strategy, and resource management. Players must recruit...

Action Supercross is a fast, stunt-heavy motocross game that puts you on a bike and then seems to ask one very important question: how much airborne stupidity can you survive? Trac...

Crash Garrett is a pulp-inspired adventure that puts the player in the role of a tough, wisecracking hero caught up in a mystery filled with danger, suspicious characters, and old-...

The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time is a science-fiction adventure built around time travel, investigation, and the slightly alarming realization that history can be ruined by...

Arachne is a graphical web browser for DOS. Arachne was developed by Michal Polák and released in the early 1990s as a text-mode web browser with limited graphical capabilit...

Escape from Delirium feels like someone took a pulp adventure novel, dipped it in a bucket of chaos, and fed it to a DOS system. You wake up with amnesia (because of course you do)...

_Jewels of Darkness_ is a compilation of classic text adventures released in 1986, gathering several fantasy quests into one package. Rather than relying on graphics, the game asks...

The Dam Busters is a strategy and action game inspired by the famous RAF bombing raids against German dams during World War II. Players take control of the operation, dealing with ...

McDonald Land (1992) is one of the strangest brand tie-ins ever to grace DOS, and that’s saying something. You play as Ronald McDonald himself, jumping across colorful platfo...

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...

Bright colors, friendly faces, and zero existential dread: Fisher-Price Firehouse Rescue knows its audience and delivers exactly what it promises. Designed for younger players, it ...

Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers is a 1996 DOS adventure inspired by the British science-fiction comedy series Red Dwarf. The game uses the show's distinctive combinati...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens&mdash...

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...

Lost Dutchman Mine (1989, DOS) is what happens when you mix an old western, an adventure game, and a survival simulator — and somehow it works. You’re a prospector with...

Pac-girl is a 1982 arcade-style maze game that offers another charming variation on one of gaming's most recognizable ideas. The objective is immediately familiar: collect every do...

Ford Simulator 3 (1992, DOS) pushes the formula further, polishing visuals and adding enough variety to feel like a modest evolution rather than a simple update. The driving segmen...