abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before “yippee-ki-yay” became gaming shorthand for chaos, Die Hard (1989) tried to capture the movie’s skyscraper shootout on DOS. You play as John McClane, trapp...

With Gary Grigsby’s War in Russia, the scale somehow gets even bigger, and the margin for error even smaller. This is strategy at its most unforgiving, where moving a unit on...

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...

In Battle Chess 2: Chinese Chess (1990), the classic formula gets an eastern makeover—complete with new rules, a new board, and a fresh batch of animated fatalities. If you t...

Epic (1992, DOS) lives up to its name—or at least tries very, very hard. It’s a space combat game bursting with ambition, tossing you into dogfights that feel massive e...

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...

Welcome to 2112, a game that predicted a grim techno-future back when floppy disks still ruled. This DOS-era oddity throws you into a world that’s part cyberpunk, part fever ...

Ever wondered what would happen if a roguelike and a B-movie had a radioactive baby? AlphaMan is the answer. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where mutant banana slugs might be your...

B.A.T. is a cyberpunk-themed adventure game released in 1989 by UBI Soft for various platforms, including Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and later the Commodore 64. It blends adventure, ...

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 ...

Invasion of the Mutant Space Bats of Doom has perhaps the greatest title-to-content ratio in gaming history. Released in 1995, it embraces absurdity with every pixel, delivering ar...

In Ack-Ack Attack! (1995, DOS), you operate an anti-aircraft gun and do your best to shoot down waves of enemy planes with what appears to be a potato cannon. The game is loud, fra...

Ishido (1990, DOS/Mac) is the digital version of sitting in a Zen garden and realizing you’re terrible at strategy. The game’s premise is simple: place stones on a grid...

SimCity (or SimCity Classic) is a popular city building simulation in which you, the mayor of a city, have to build a metropolis from the ground up. You can build police and fire d...

Beetlejuice: Skeletons in the Closet is a video game based on the popular Beetlejuice franchise, which includes a 1988 film directed by Tim Burton and an animated television series...

Based on the hit TV series, LA Law: The Computer Game (1992) lets you live out legal drama without needing a law degree—though it certainly helps. You manage cases, interview...

In 1986, Hacker arrived with a premise that felt thrillingly dangerous at the time: you, alone, tapping into secret computer systems and uncovering conspiracies. No explosions, no ...

The Great Giana Sisters is a platform video game developed by Time Warp Productions and published by Rainbow Arts. It was originally released in 1987 for the Commodore 64 and other...

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...

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...

In Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail, you don’t just play King Arthur—you earn your role as the guy in charge of finding a cup with magical healing powers ...

Often mistaken as a Dig Dug clone, Digger is more like its eccentric cousin who insists on bringing a disco soundtrack to every family gathering. Released in 1983 for DOS, it combi...