abandonware games sorted by popularity

City of Lost Children is as beautiful as it is bewildering. Based on the surreal 1995 film, this adventure game drops you into a dark, oily dystopia filled with creepy orphans, biz...

Playhouse Strip Poker is a 1988 DOS card game that combines the traditional rules of poker with the novelty elements popular in adult entertainment software of the era. Players com...

Cutthroats: Terror on the High Seas puts you aboard ships where peaceful retirement is apparently not part of the career plan. The game mixes naval action, exploration, and the dan...

Harpoon II expands on the original with more content and a greater sense of scale, as if it decided the ocean was not quite big enough the first time around. The added depth makes ...

Icewind Dale arrived in 2000 as a frosty sibling to the Baldur's Gate formula, trading political intrigue for glorious dungeon crawling in the forgotten corners of the Forgotten Re...

Heart of the Maelstrom brings epic dungeon crawling to dizzying heights, challenging players with sprawling levels, fiendish enemies, and puzzles that seem to require a PhD in pati...

The Gene Machine is a quirky point-and-click adventure with a colorful comic-book style, a bizarre cast, and a story that happily wanders into territory where ordinary logic should...

Ninja is a 1986 action game that wastes very little time explaining the job description. You are a ninja, there are enemies, and they would prefer that you stop being quite so succ...

Film Studio Tycoon Alpha is a management simulation about the glamorous world of filmmaking, except that glamour quickly gives way to budgets, scheduling, production decisions, and...

A murder has been committed on a luxury yacht, and in Cruise for a Corpse, you’re the detective tasked with unraveling the mystery before the killer strikes again. The game u...

The Blues Brothers 2: Jukebox Adventure follows Jake and Elwood into another platforming adventure, this time with an even stronger emphasis on the colorful, chaotic style of the s...

No, not that Battlestar. Battlestar (1996) is more obscure than a reboot that never happened. Set in deep space with a top-down view and UI only a Windows 3.x user could love, it m...

Based loosely on Jules Verne’s famous tale, this game lets you live your steampunk submarine dreams with all the elegance of a DOS interface. You command the Nautilus, explor...

Horror Zombies from the Crypt sounds like it should be terrifying, but in practice it leans more toward quirky than genuinely scary. Released in 1990, it mixes action and adventure...

Phantasie 3: The Wrath of Nikademus continues the fantasy role-playing series with a larger adventure, stronger enemies, and an even greater challenge for returning heroes. Players...

Based on the cult comedy film, Wayne’s World (1993, DOS) is loud, weird, and occasionally frustrating—much like its source material. This platformer throws Wayne and Ga...

Microsoft Space Simulator is a space flight simulator game developed by Bruce Artwick Organization and published by Microsoft in 1994. It is part of the broader range of simulation...

Nicky Boom is a 1992 platform game starring a young hero who finds himself in the traditional video game situation of having to save the day because apparently nobody else was avai...

Paint Shop Pro 3 is an early version of PaintShop Pro, which is a graphics editing program known for its user-friendly interface and a range of features that cater to both amateur ...

Imagine Tetris but in three dimensions and your brain slowly melting into a puddle of confusion. That is Blockout. You drop 3D shapes into a pit and try to line them up, but nothin...

Whale's Voyage is a quirky science-fiction adventure that combines exploration, trading, combat, and a surprisingly large amount of freedom. Despite the title, you are not spending...

Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara Croft pushes the series further into globe-trotting action, sending Lara through locations ranging from jungles and deserts to urban environment...

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...

Released in 1990, LHX Attack Chopper places players inside the cockpit of advanced military helicopters across a variety of combat missions. Blending flight simulation with accessi...

SimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony is a wonderfully eccentric 1991 simulation that lets players experience life from the perspective of an ant. Rather than building cities or managi...

Think you’re good at making tough decisions under pressure? Advanced Civilization dares you to prove it by turning diplomacy into passive-aggressive warfare. Based on the cla...

One Must Fall: 2097 is a fighting game released in 1994 by Epic MegaGames. Set in a futuristic world, the game features giant humanoid robots known as HARs (Human-Assisted Robots) ...

Baseball Mogul (1997) was the original release that kicked off the whole franchise. Developed by Clay Dreslough and published by Infinite Monkey Systems, this was a pioneer in the ...

Imagine Doom and Ultima Underworld had a low-budget child who was homeschooled in a basement filled with Mountain Dew cans. That’s Amulets & Armor. A mix of first-person ...

If Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego had a caffeinated younger cousin, it would be Bush Buck: Global Treasure Hunter. You race around the globe chasing clues, dodging rivals, a...