abandonware games sorted by popularity

Dark Ages Volume III: Dungeons of Doom closes out the trilogy with—you guessed it—more doom, dungeons, and ways to fall off platforms you swear you landed on. The serie...

Before apps, spreadsheets, and AI Dungeon Masters, there was Dungeon Master’s Assistant Vol. 1. Released in 1988, this tool was a digital sidekick for pen-and-paper D&D p...

Shadow Knights is a 1990 DOS action game inspired by the world of ninjas and medieval warriors. Players control a highly trained fighter who must move through dangerous environment...

Ruins of Cawdor is a 1995 DOS role-playing game centered on dungeon exploration, combat, character development, and the discovery of ancient secrets. Players venture into dangerous...

Think running an airline is easy? Airlines (1994) says “think again.” This old-school management sim hands you a failing fleet and a world map, then laughs quietly as y...

The name Carnage says it all—this top-down racer is less about precision driving and more about smashing into your enemies until they resemble digital roadkill. It’s fa...

Back in 1987, Crazy Cars asked the eternal question: how fast can you go before the road becomes an abstract blur? Armed with a sleek sports car and the confidence of someone who&r...

The Dark Heart of Uukrul is a challenging fantasy role-playing game that throws the player into a sprawling dungeon full of monsters, traps, secrets, and enough dark corridors to m...

With Icewind Dale II in 2002, the frozen north got even busier. This sequel sharpened the mechanics with Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition rules, giving players more flexibility and f...

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...

In Moonmist (1986), you’re invited to a spooky English castle where, naturally, murder and mystery are on the menu. This Infocom text adventure mixes romance, ghost stories, ...

Megafortress places players inside the cockpit of a sophisticated B-52 bomber, combining realistic flight simulation with large-scale military operations. Navigation, fuel manageme...

Crime City is an isometric action game that throws you into the role of a lone enforcer cleaning up the streets. Armed with a trusty weapon and a questionable sense of self-preserv...

ATAC (1992) is what you get when someone says, “What if we made SimCity, but for waging the War on Drugs?” You play as the head of an anti-narcotics task force, deployi...

Released in 1988, Legend of the Sword is a graphic adventure that tries to blend epic fantasy storytelling with the puzzle-solving spirit of early point-and-clicks. The result is a...

SuperKarts is a cheerful little kart racer that takes the basic idea of driving fast and adds enough bumps, jumps, and questionable track design to keep things lively. Released in ...

Gateway 2: Homeworld takes the already unusual formula of its predecessor and leans even further into its strange, narrative-driven identity. You’re not just solving puzzles&...

James Clavell's Shogun, a text adventure game developed by Infocom and released in 1989. Infocom was known for its interactive fiction games, and "James Clavell's Shogun" was one o...

If text adventures are your thing, Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative (1985, DOS) will either delight or destroy you. You type commands to guide Kirk and crew through a no-win sc...

This 1986 DOS classic sounds way cooler than it is — ACE: Air Combat Emulator promises combat, but delivers what feels like flying a lawnmower through molasses. Still, for it...

In Captain Comic 2: Fractured Reality, our fearless spandex-wearing space explorer returns—but this time, he's bouncing between dimensions like a malfunctioning microwave. Th...

Galdregon's Domain drops players into a fantasy world that feels like it was stitched together from dungeon maps, spellbooks, and a suspiciously large number of monsters. The premi...

African Adventure is one of those games that feels like it was made during a two-hour layover at the airport - but somehow, it works. Set in the savannah, it combines survival, exp...

Telengard is one of the earliest computer role-playing games, released in 1982 for various home computers like the Commodore 64, Apple II, and TRS-80 and later for PC. It was devel...

Hard Hat Mack is the kind of game that proves construction work can be more dangerous in pixels than in real life, provided real life had ladders that seem determined to betray you...