abandonware games sorted by popularity

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

Strap in and squint at the horizon—Advanced Tactical Fighter 2 wants you to dogfight like it’s the Cold War and your joystick is a weapon of mass confusion. Released in...

Step into the shoes of a medieval lord in this 1991 DOS strategy game. Engage in jousting tournaments, siege castles, and vie for control of England. It's like playing Risk, but wi...

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...

No relation to Dune (except for being a total rip-off), Arrakis is a homebrew strategy game that feels like a tribute to the sandiest planet in sci-fi. You mine spice, fight vaguel...

Postal is a deliberately provocative top-down action game that throws the player into a bleak world of violence, paranoia, and very questionable decision-making. You control the Po...

If spreadsheets are your love language, Capitalism 2 is pure romance. This brutally detailed simulation lets you create your own corporate empire from scratch—manufacturing, ...

Robot Rascals is a 1987 DOS strategy and puzzle game featuring mischievous robots and a playful science-fiction setting. Players must manage their mechanical characters while solvi...

Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom shifts the setting to a more exotic environment, adding variety to the familiar formula. Released in 1992, it introduces new challenges, new puzzles, and a s...

Based on Piers Anthony’s pun-filled fantasy world, Companions of Xanth is like walking into a joke book that got lost in a spellbook. You play a guy from the "real world" suc...

Super Mario Kart remake brings the familiar kart-racing formula into a fan-made package that celebrates the chaotic spirit of Nintendo's classic. The basic ingredients are all here...

Released in 1993, Lethal Tender combines platform action with a satirical storyline centered on greed, money, and determined heroes. Players jump through colorful levels while coll...

If you’ve ever wondered what Bill Gates was doing before becoming a household name, Donkey BAS holds the answer: programming a game about avoiding pixelated donkeys on a high...

MicroLeague Baseball 2 improves upon its predecessor with expanded statistics, updated features, and a deeper simulation of America's favorite pastime. Players can manage teams, ma...

Take to the skies in Dawn Patrol (1994), a flight sim that remembers when aerial combat meant fabric wings and machine guns bolted onto wooden planes. Set in World War I, it’...

This 1989 game is based on the animated movie where dogs die, go to heaven, then come back for revenge (sort of). The DOS adaptation? Well, it’s more like All Pixels Go Nowhe...

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...

In APB (1989), you’re a cop in a little squad car with a huge attitude problem. Your job? Pull over criminals, avoid donuts, and try not to smash into every tree, wall, and p...

Heavy Barrel is an action game that embraces chaos with enthusiasm, throwing enemies at you in a way that feels both overwhelming and oddly satisfying. The gameplay is straightforw...

In Air Force Commander (1992), you don’t just fly planes - you run the whole air force. Think of it as being a general with a spreadsheet addiction. Assign squadrons, manage ...

Transarctica presents a wonderfully bleak vision of the future in which Earth has frozen over and surviving civilization depends on enormous trains crossing the icy wilderness. The...

In 1991, DOS gamers were treated to the weirdest parenting simulator ever: Baby Joe in: Going Home. You play as Baby Joe, an infant inexplicably left to crawl through caves, forest...

Imagine Tetris went on a sugar binge and had an identity crisis. That’s Zyconix (1992, DOS) in a nutshell. It’s a tile-matching puzzle game where nothing quite behaves ...

Turns out war is a lot tidier when it’s turn-based. Battle Isle (1991) gives you neat little hexagons to move your units on, like a very angry board game. It’s got stra...

Stellar 7 takes the tank-combat formula and launches it into science fiction, giving you a futuristic armored vehicle and a whole galaxy of unpleasant things to shoot. Inspired by ...

Stonekeep is a first-person fantasy dungeon crawler with an appropriately unpleasant central premise: the kingdom has been attacked, evil has taken over, and you are expected to cl...

Treasures of the Savage Frontier is a classic Forgotten Realms adventure built around exploration, party-based combat, and the sort of fantasy world where walking down the road is ...

Phantis is a 1987 platform action game that sends players through colorful environments filled with enemies, obstacles, and classic challenges requiring quick reflexes. The game fo...

Metropolis offers a fascinating early vision of urban management, challenging players to build and develop a functioning city while balancing infrastructure, resources, and the nee...

Ween: The Prophecy is a surreal French adventure that mixes fantasy, strange characters, puzzles, and an atmosphere that occasionally feels as though someone has poured a dream int...