abandonware games sorted by popularity

Normality is a first-person adventure video game developed by Gremlin Interactive and released in 1996. The game is set in a dystopian future where a totalitarian regime known as t...

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,...

Imagine X-COM but with fewer excuses to blame the developers when you miss a 95% chance shot—because in UFO 2000 (2004), the chaos was entirely player-driven. A free, open-so...

Elevator is one of those early arcade-style games that sounds boring on paper and becomes oddly stressful in practice. You’re navigating elevators, rescuing people, and avoid...

Ford Simulator 1 (1987, DOS) is equal parts driving demo and corporate handshake, inviting you to sample shiny vehicles without leaving your desk. You cruise digital roads, admire ...

Inspired by the film, The Rocketeer (1991, DOS) lets you strap on a jetpack and soar—well, mostly hover—through an adventure packed with gangsters, Nazis, and mid-centu...

Road Runner is a 1989 DOS arcade game based on the famous cartoon rivalry between the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Players control the extraordinarily fast bird as he races thro...

Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft pushes the series further into globe-trotting action, sending Lara through locations ranging from jungles and deserts to urban environment...

Outbound is a 2001 adventure game set in a world of science fiction, exploration, and strange environments that are considerably less welcoming than the average tourist destination...

Strap into your Spitfire, because Aces Over Europe (1993, DOS) is here to show you that flying over 1940s Europe was as dangerous as it was polygonal. As a follow-up to Aces of the...

In Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp (1990), Dirk doesn’t just fight dragons—he bungles his way through time itself. Want to rescue your wife Daphne? Prepare to stumble ...

She’s pink, she’s fast, and she’s got a bow. CHAMP Ms. Pac-man reimagines the iconic maze-chaser with smooth controls and new levels while keeping that glorious m...

Released in 2003 for Windows XP, Babylon 5: I've Found Her is the kind of fan-made game that makes you question whether it’s actually fan-made or secretly a pilot for a new s...

Catenaccio! Passion! Endless tactics! Championship Manager 2: The Italian Leagues delivers Serie A drama in spreadsheet form. You may not smell the espresso or hear the vuvuzelas, ...

Before heroes had inventory screens and voice acting, there was Adventure in Serenia, the lovechild of a text parser and a fever dream. Released in 1982, this proto-graphic adventu...

When Two Worlds War is a strategy game built around the uncomfortable proposition that diplomacy has failed and the only remaining argument involves fleets, armies, and industrial ...

Fleet Command invites you to command modern naval forces with the calm authority of someone who definitely read the manual. This is strategy on a grand scale: radar screens glowing...

Bolo Ball is a DOS game from the mid-1990s. It features a physics-based gameplay where the objective is to knock opponent balls out of an arena. When you start the game, you find y...

ELIZA, created in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, was one of the first computer programs to simulate human conversation. Designed as a natural language processing demons...

A gloriously grimy cyberpunk romp, Ranx: The Video Game drops you in a future where technology, attitude, and questionable hygiene coexist in uneasy harmony. Based on the French co...

Secret Agent is a 1992 DOS action-platform game from Apogee in which players take control of an international spy battling through dangerous levels packed with enemies, traps, and ...

Ah, Chessmaster 3000. The title alone sounds like it should have lasers and robot arms, but what you get is a thoughtful, elegant chess sim that finally brings charisma to the game...

Conqueror is what happens when a tank simulator and an arcade game go on a date and forget their purpose. You drive a tank in a pseudo-3D landscape, blow up stuff, and command squa...

This 1989 DOS game has you hunting down demons in a dark, pixelated world. Equip yourself with weapons, explore eerie environments, and face off against otherworldly creatures. It'...

Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (1992) is what happens when a simple beat-’em-up decides to go globetrotting. Instead of just brawling through alleys, Billy and Jimmy trav...

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a cop who drifts around corners at 90 mph in a convertible, Cisco Heat is your kind of chaos. This arcade racer puts you in the shoes of a law...

Streets of SimCity takes the city-building world of SimCity and drops the player directly onto its streets. Instead of calmly planning roads and zoning districts from above, you ca...

From the mind of Michael Crichton comes Amazon, a game that lets you live out your jungle explorer fantasies—without the bugs or dysentery. You’re off to the Amazon to ...

Moraff's Revenge delivers a classic dungeon-crawling role-playing adventure packed with monsters, treasure, exploration, and enough dangerous corridors to make staying home seem in...

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...