abandonware games sorted by popularity

Shard of Spring (1987, DOS) is a role-playing adventure from an era when mapping dungeons on graph paper was practically mandatory. You assemble a party and set out on a quest fill...

It Came from the Desert is a cinematic masterpiece of giant ants, paranoia, and 1950s sci-fi homage. Released in 1990 for DOS, it blends action, strategy, and storytelling into a u...

Artura is a hack-and-slash side-scroller that looks like someone tried to draw Gauntlet from memory after a power outage. You’re some kind of Celtic warrior on a mystical mis...

SkyGlobe is an astronomy software that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was a DOS-based planetarium program that allowed users to explore the night sky in real-tim...

In The Lost Vikings (1993, DOS), three Viking warriors with more brawn than brains find themselves kidnapped by aliens. Instead of raiding villages, they’re solving puzzles w...

Wizball is a  shoot 'em up video game developed by Sensible Software and originally released for various home computer platforms in 1987. The game was published by Ocean ...

Rastan is Conan-the-Barbarian energy distilled into a side-scrolling adventure where your primary verb is “destroy.” The DOS port lacks a bit of arcade sparkle, but the...

Independence War 2: Edge Of Chaos refines its predecessor’s ideas into a more open-ended and player-driven experience. Trading, piracy, and exploration play a much larger rol...

Body Blows is a 2D fighting game developed and published by Team17, released in 1993. It was initially launched for the Amiga and later ported to MS-DOS. Body Blows was one of the ...

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where leather vests are apparently immune to radiation, Bad Blood lets you wander the wasteland deciding whether to be a brute, a brainiac, or a mut...

Ultimate DOOM is an expanded version of the original DOOM (1993), developed by id Software and released in 1995. It includes all three original episodes of DOOM along with a brand-...

Commander Keen 1: Marooned on Mars is a platform video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1990 as shareware for MS-DOS. The game follows the adv...

Supaplex is a classic puzzle game released in 1991 by Think!Ware Development for MS-DOS and Amiga. It is heavily inspired by Boulder Dash but introduces more complex mechanics.&nbs...

Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? is an educational computer game and television game show franchise created by Broderbund. It focuses on teaching geography and history while playe...

Cossacks: European Wars is a real-time strategy epic that lets you command armies so big you’ll lose track of half your soldiers. Set in the 17th and 18th centuries, it&rsquo...

Released back when computers still hummed ominously and monitors glowed like radioactive jellyfish, Epidemic! throws you into the grim business of stopping a deadly outbreak. The i...

Fox Ranger is a side-scrolling shooter that wastes no time explaining itself—because lasers are self-explanatory. You pilot a sleek craft through swarms of enemies with the s...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Star Trek: First Contact (not to be confused with the later movie) is more puzzle-solving than phaser-firing. You take control of the Enterprise crew as t...

SimEarth is a simulation in which you can shape and mold a planet in almost every way you can imagine. In SimEarth our planet is simulated as a whole: life, climate, atmosphere are...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) is an arcade game released in 1989 by Konami. It is based on the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. The game was initially released...

If Krazy Ivan (1996, Windows XP) had a motto, it’d be “Blow it up first, ask later.” You pilot a massive mech across post-apocalyptic battlefields, obliterating a...

Bigger, darker, and just as merciless, Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep doubled down on everything that made the first game great—and slightly unhinged. Released in...

An expansion to the original, Cossacks: The Art of War refines, expands, and generally cranks up the chaos. New units, new campaigns, and more ways to accidentally bankrupt your na...