abandonware games sorted by popularity

Night Mission Pinball is a 1982 pinball simulation that proves the basic appeal of pinball is remarkably difficult to ruin. The game recreates the essential ingredients of the real...

Grandmaster Chess is not here to hold your hand, compliment your moves, or pretend that losing is part of the fun. In Grandmaster Chess, you are up against a computer that takes it...

Unnatural Selection is a quirky strategy game from 1993 that asks a simple question: what if evolution had a sense of humor? You’re tasked with guiding creatures through generati...

Days of Thunder (1990) is what happens when Hollywood’s love affair with Tom Cruise collides with DOS racing. Based on the movie of the same name, it’s an attempt to ca...

Crusaders of the Dark Savant is a sprawling saga with enough content to make your eyes bleed and your fingers cramp. The game blends strategy, exploration, and role-playing with a ...

Marathon 2: Durandal builds confidently upon the original by refining the action, expanding the story, and introducing multiplayer features that became legendary among fans. The ca...

Based on the James Bond film of the same name, James Bond 007: A View to a Kill arrived in 1985 and delivered a mixture of action and adventure sequences inspired by the movie. Pla...

Jetpack is a classic 2D platformer video game developed by Adept Software and released for MS-DOS computers in 1993. Created by Adam Pedersen, it became popular for its addictive g...

Time Bandit is a classic top-down arcade-style video game that was released in 1982 for various home computer systems, such as the Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and others. It was dev...

The Magic Candle 2 (1991, DOS) expands the world, story, and ambition of its predecessor. With forty heroes scattered across a sprawling realm, you’ll spend as much time mana...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is a geopolitical strategy game developed by Chris Crawford and released in 1985. It is considered a classic in the genre of political and strate...

Ah yes, the game that crawled so Ultima could run. Akalabeth is a wireframe dungeon crawl where you descend into monster-infested labyrinths with the elegance of a lost spreadsheet...

The title Dinosaur Balls might raise eyebrows today, but in 1992 it was just a quirky DOS puzzle game. Think of it as prehistoric Bubble Bobble: you fire colored spheres to match a...

Wizardry 2: The Knight of Diamonds takes the classic dungeon crawl and adds a few extra twists, like more mazes to get lost in and puzzles designed to make you question your life c...

Back when PC shoot-’em-ups were still proving they could match arcades, Raptor: Call of the Shadows landed like a missile. Fast, crunchy, and blessed with explosions that fee...

Circuit's Edge is a cyberpunk-themed role-playing game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Infocom. It was released in 1990 for MS-DOS. Set in a dystopian future, Cir...

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game from 1989 takes the same beloved film and asks a crucial question: what if archaeology required more jumping? This adaptation tr...

If Street Rod was a rockabilly rebel, Street Rod 2 (1991, DOS) is its cooler, leather-jacket-wearing cousin. Everything’s bigger, badder, and more polished. The cars roar wit...

Dig Dug is a classic maze arcade action game that was first released by Namco in 1982 as a coin-op and later for a number of other systems. The gameplay of Dig Dug involves digging...

Alcatraz (1992) asks the question: what if Rambo got locked in prison and had to bust out while flexing dramatically the entire time? This top-down action game puts you in the very...

1990’s Back to the Future Part 2 for DOS is a game that tries very hard to be as confusing as time travel itself. You’re Marty McFly, zipping between timelines, avoidin...

Panger General is a turn based strategy wargame developed by SSI set in World War 2. The player can choose Axis or Allies and fight against the AI or another human player in more t...

Arctic Adventure is the sequel nobody asked for to Pharaoh's Tomb, except this time you’re freezing your butt off. As Nevada Smith (not a typo, it’s his real name), you...

Lamborghini: American Challenge (1992) is what happens when arcade racing meets a poster-covered teenage bedroom. You race exotic cars across the U.S., earn money, upgrade vehicles...

Sierra Championship Boxing is an abandoned sports boxing game, developed by Evryware and released by Sierra On-Line in 1985. You can issue instructions to the boxer between rounds,...

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 ...

X-Men 2: The Fall of the Mutants is a curious blend of action and light strategy, where Marvel’s famous mutants get to stretch their powers across a series of loosely connected m...