abandonware games sorted by popularity

A Dudley Dilemma (1988) sounds like the title of a children’s book, but it’s actually a very British text adventure for DOS where the stakes are politely quirky and mil...

Xtrek is a multiplayer-focused space simulation that captures the spirit of cooperative and competitive gameplay long before it became mainstream. Players pilot ships, complete obj...

Fox Ranger is a side-scrolling shooter that wastes no time explaining itself—because lasers are self-explanatory. You pilot a sleek craft through swarms of enemies with the s...

Fleet Defender places you in the cockpit of a carrier-based fighter and politely suggests you try not to embarrass yourself in front of the entire navy. This flight sim balances ac...

Ulises is a mythological adventure that wears its classical inspiration proudly, even when the technology struggles to keep up. Drawing loosely from Homer’s Odyssey, the game...

Dylan Dog: Through the Looking Glass takes the surrealism of the comics and dives headfirst into nightmare territory. Imagine Carroll’s Wonderland rewritten by Lovecraft and ...

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...

As sequels go, Serpent Isle is less “more of the same” and more “everything is different, good luck.” Shipwrecked on a strange new land, you’ll deal w...

Shadows Over Riva caps the trilogy with a confident stride. The graphics receive a welcome upgrade, the atmosphere takes a darker turn, and the narrative leans heavily into detecti...

Before rhythm games took over, there was Moonwalker (1989), where you play as none other than Michael Jackson himself, saving kidnapped kids by dancing enemies into submission. Yes...

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...

Think you're smart? Arcade Trivia Quiz (1993) is here to humble you with rapid-fire questions about pop culture, history, and whatever else the developers could fit on a floppy dis...

This game is either a delightful brain teaser or a slow descent into madness, depending on how patient you are. 15x15 Picture Puzzle gives you a scrambled mess of tiny square tiles...

You don’t need a joystick the size of a tree to enjoy Konami’s Ping Pong (1996, DOS). Simple, fast, and maddeningly addictive, this digital table tennis game nails the ...

Darkstone tried to ride the Diablo wave in 1999, and honestly, it didn’t do a bad job. With 3D graphics (impressive for the time) and a soundtrack that takes itself way too s...

If you’ve ever stared at a Monopoly board and thought, “This needs more spreadsheets,” then Oligopoly is basically your spiritual home. Released in 1987 for DOS, ...

Hill Street Blues translates the atmosphere of its source material into a game that emphasizes management and decision-making. It places you in a role where every choice matters, o...

Dune Generations was a canceled 3D MMO strategy game set in the Dune universe that was never published. Dune Generations was in development by Cryo Interactive ...

In the Dead of Night is one of those mid-90s DOS oddities that feels like it crawled straight out of a programmer’s personal nightmares. Part adventure, part horror, and part...