abandonware games sorted by popularity

God of Thunder is a classic computer game developed by Adept Software and released in 1993. It's a puzzle platformer with a fantasy theme. In the game, you control Thor, the Norse ...

Taito’s Puzznic (1990) takes the idea of matching tiles and injects a surprising amount of strategy. You slide blocks to align pairs, but each move requires forethought&mdash...

In Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes, the stakes go from “oops, stranded on Mars” to “uh-oh, Earth is doomed.” The Vorticons have planted death lasers in...

In Star Trek: The Rebel Universe (1988, DOS), the Enterprise is stranded in a dangerous sector where the Federation has gone rogue. You command the crew in an open-world style adve...

This isn’t Disney’s musical fairytale—it’s a DOS game, which means Beauty and the Beast is way more "puzzle platformer" than "tale as old as time." You play...

The Lost Patrol (1991, DOS) drops you into the brutal jungles of Vietnam, where survival depends on strategy, luck, and maybe divine intervention. You lead a squad of exhausted sol...

Rome wasn’t built in a day—but you’ll conquer it in one afternoon. Centurion (1990) lets you play as a Roman commander with delusions of grandeur and a thing for ...

Another World (1991) is a cinematic platformer with big ideas, minimal UI, and a shocking willingness to let you die within five seconds of starting. You play as a scientist who ge...

The Terminator: Future Shock is an abandoned science fiction first-person shooter game based on the popular Terminator movies franchise, set in a dystopian world where machines has...

Joust VGA updates the classic arcade formula with improved visuals while preserving the frantic gameplay that made the original memorable. Released in 1990, the game challenges pla...

Gloriana sails into the realm of naval strategy with a focus on historical battles and tactical maneuvering. Ships move with a deliberate pace, and positioning is everything, turni...

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 ...

Rendezvous with Rama is an interactive fiction (text adventure) game released in 1984. Telarium, a subsidiary of Spinnaker Software, was known for producing narrative-driven games ...

Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light ver...

Whale's Voyage is an abandoned science fiction first-person view party-based RPG, developed by neo Software Produktions and released by Pro One Software in 1993. Whale's Voyage is ...

In Battle Master (1991), you play as a heavily armored murder-hobo leading an army across a fantasy world that really doesn’t want you there. It’s part action-RPG, part...

Norton Commander was a file manager and editor application released by Peter Norton Computing for DOS. Norton Commander used a text-based user interface with side-by-side pane...

Corridor 7 is a claustrophobic FPS where every hallway feels like a trap and every door could hide something with too many teeth. You’re humanity’s last line of defense...

Set in the D&D desert domain of Har’Akir, Ravenloft: Stone Prophet blends horror and ancient-Egypt vibes into a first-person RPG that still feels unusual today. You wande...

Mech Brigade (1987) is a strategy game that lets you live out your dream of commanding an army of giant robots. Set in a futuristic battlefield, you’re in charge of deploying...

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos (1993) is a classic first-person RPG that understands pacing better than many of its peers. It offers a rich fantasy world, memorable characters,...

Ah, Budokan, the game where patience and discipline meet awkwardly slow combat and the occasional flying kick. You play as a martial arts student training in various dojos, culmina...

If Shakespeare wrote video games and then decided, “You know what this needs? A parser and some pixelated drama,” you'd get Avon. In this interactive fiction gem from 1...