abandonware games sorted by popularity

A moody sci-fi adventure drenched in neon gloom, The Orion Conspiracy (1995, DOS) tosses you into a futuristic murder mystery where everyone seems to be hiding something—ofte...

Math was never supposed to be this exciting. In Number Munchers, you’re a green blob with an appetite for multiplication tables, gobbling up correct answers while dodging &ld...

Forbidden Quest (1983, DOS) belongs to that early era when imagination did most of the heavy lifting. Sparse visuals and text-driven cues invite you to picture grand dangers lurkin...

Released in 1992, Sexy Droids ventured into science fiction with a mixture of adult humor and futuristic imagery. The game embraced its unusual concept wholeheartedly, presenting s...

DuckTales: The Quest for Gold takes everyone’s favorite miserly duck, Scrooge McDuck, and sends him globetrotting for treasure. It’s part platformer, part management si...

Riven: The Sequel to Myst is a 1997 adventure that follows the groundbreaking Myst with an even larger and more detailed world. Players explore the mysterious Age of Riven, examini...

Thexder 2: Firehawk expands the original transforming-robot formula with larger environments, new enemies and a greater emphasis on combat. The basic trick remains wonderfully simp...

Arnie 2 is the unofficial Schwarzenegger sim where you run around shirtless with guns bigger than your torso, blowing up helicopters, bunkers, and bad guys in increasingly ridiculo...

Released during the holiday season of 1993, _Jetpack: Christmas Special_ wraps the classic gameplay of Jetpack in festive decorations and seasonal cheer. Beneath the snow-covered v...

Released in 1984, Jumpman is a classic platform game that challenges players to navigate construction sites packed with hazards, ladders, and carefully placed obstacles. The object...

The original Crusader: No Remorse sets the tone for the series: brutal, explosive, and unapologetically action-focused. You’re a rogue operative taking on a dystopian corpora...

Rings of Medusa is a 1990 DOS role-playing adventure that combines exploration, trading, combat, and strategy in a large fantasy world. Players travel across a map, gather resource...

Douglas Adams, the twisted genius behind Hitchhiker’s Guide, brings you the most terrifying adventure of all: paperwork. Bureaucracy turns mundane modern life into a text-bas...

Wing Commander: Armada takes the familiar space-combat formula and adds a strategic layer, turning the war against the Kilrathi into something considerably larger than a series of ...

Uplink: Hacker Elite drops you into a digital underworld where your keyboard is your most powerful weapon. Released in 2001, it blends strategy and simulation, tasking you with bre...

Evolution is an early experiment in simulating progress, and it wears its ambition proudly. The game attempts to model development and change over time, often in abstract ways that...

Doomdark's Revenge is a strategy and role-playing video game developed by Mike Singleton and originally released in 1985 for DOS and various home computer systems, including the ZX...

Obitus is a 1991 action-adventure game that throws the player into a dangerous fantasy world where exploration, combat, and survival are all part of the daily schedule. The game co...

Paperboy 2 expands the original concept by introducing new routes, additional hazards, and even more opportunities for suburban chaos. Delivering newspapers remains the central obj...

_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...

System Shock drops you into a space station run by an AI that has clearly read too many villain manuals and decided to try them all at once. SHODAN, the game’s iconic antagon...

By the time Earthworm Jim hit DOS, its reputation already preceded it, and it largely lived up to the hype. This is a platformer that thrives on absurdity: a worm in a spacesuit, b...

Street Sports Soccer (1988, DOS) trades professional pitches for empty lots, with goalposts made of bricks and wild kids chasing glory. It’s messy, fast, and surprisingly end...

If you’ve ever looked at a map of the Pacific theater in World War II and thought, “Yes, but what if I micromanaged all of it?”, Gary Grigsby’s Pacific War ...

Snake Logan is back, and this time the lab is... hidden! The Hidden Lab cranks up the challenge with more grotesque mutants, more lethal traps, and slightly improved sarcasm. It&rs...

What if the Nazis won? Kronolog: The Nazi Paradox (1993, DOS) takes that nightmare seriously. You play a time traveler trying to fix history, navigating through an oppressive, Orwe...

Mech Commander: Gold (1999) is tactical perfection for fans of giant robots and careful planning. Set in the BattleTech universe, the game puts you in command of a mercenary squad ...

A Line in the Sand (1992) is what happens when a board game about modern Middle Eastern warfare gets turned into a DOS strategy title with all the subtlety of a cold war memo. You ...

In Crime and Punishment, you’re not the criminal—you’re the detective, judge, and executioner rolled into one. Presented as a legal simulation, it tasks you with ...

In Crazy Nick’s Parlor Games with Laura Bow, the famous young detective swaps clues for checkers, backgammon, and card tables. The change of pace is gentle—no bodies to...