abandonware games sorted by popularity

Imagine if Tetris, Columns, and a pack of highlighters had a baby. That’s Zoop. You’re in the center of the screen, and colorful shapes are marching toward you from all...

Conflict is a turn-based war game where you get to play Commander-in-Chief and yell at your virtual generals when things go wrong (which they often do). It's part military sim, par...

A text adventure with just enough graphics to remind you what year it is, The Pawn (1986, DOS) wraps you in a fantasy world where the puzzles are clever and the parser occasionally...

The Terminator: Future Shock takes the Terminator universe into first-person 3D and does considerably more than simply provide another excuse to shoot robots. Set in a devastated f...

If spreadsheets are your love language, Capitalism 2 is pure romance. This brutally detailed simulation lets you create your own corporate empire from scratch—manufacturing, ...

This one’s a flight sim for people who think Top Gun didn’t have enough fuel gauges. 1942: The Pacific Air War puts you in the cockpit of World War II fighter planes, c...

Castles 2 took everything the first game did and cranked it up with actual diplomacy, espionage, and conquest mechanics. Now you’re not just stacking bricks—you’r...

ZZT (1991, DOS) looks like it was drawn by an enthusiastic ASCII artist with too much time and not enough colors. And yet, it’s brilliant. Part action game, part puzzle adven...

Hard Hat Mack is the kind of game that proves construction work can be more dangerous in pixels than in real life, provided real life had ladders that seem determined to betray you...

Turns out war is a lot tidier when it’s turn-based. Battle Isle (1991) gives you neat little hexagons to move your units on, like a very angry board game. It’s got stra...

Quake II is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and released in 1997. It is the sequel to the original Quake and was a significant milestone in the evolution...

If you’ve ever wanted to play interstellar Monopoly while arguing with alien neighbors, Deadlock: Planetary Conquest is your ticket. Released in 1996, this strategy gem tosse...

Space Quest 2: Vohaul’s Revenge continues Roger Wilco’s improbable rise from janitor to cosmic trouble magnet. This 1987 sequel ups the stakes by kidnapping Roger and t...

Pinball Dreams is a 1993 digital pinball simulation that brought the excitement of arcade machines into the home computer era with impressive physics and colorful tables. Players l...

Astro Fire (1994) is the illegitimate love child of Asteroids and a particularly angry fireworks show. You pilot a tiny ship with a death wish through an endless barrage of asteroi...

Prophecy: The Viking Child is a 1991 platform adventure inspired by Norse mythology, combining action, exploration, and colorful environments. Players guide a young Viking hero thr...

NHL Hockey is a 1993 ice hockey game that delivers the essential experience of the sport without requiring players to memorize an encyclopedia of rules before taking to the rink. T...

In Castle Master, you get dropped into a spooky polygonal castle and told, “Figure it out.” And that’s it. Early 3D graphics make every wall look like it was pain...

Released in 1990, Logo introduces players to programming concepts through the famous turtle graphics system, transforming coding into an approachable creative activity. Rather than...

Transylvania is an atmospheric text adventure that sends the player into a classic gothic setting filled with mystery, danger, and the sort of suspicious castle that sensible peopl...

Blasteroids is a video game developed and released by Atari, Inc. in 1987. It's a sequel to the classic arcade game Asteroids, which was released in 1979. In Blasteroids, players c...

Released in 1992, 3D World Boxing tried its best to bring the sweet science into the third dimension. The result is less Rocky and more “two mannequins in pajamas slap each o...

Plundered Hearts is a 1987 interactive fiction adventure from Infocom that combines romance, pirates, and high-seas drama into a charming text-based story. Players take the role of...

In APB (1989), you’re a cop in a little squad car with a huge attitude problem. Your job? Pull over criminals, avoid donuts, and try not to smash into every tree, wall, and p...

Dr. Sbaitso is one of the more memorable curiosities from the early era of computer speech software. Developed by Creative Labs, it presented itself as a virtual doctor capable of ...

Traffic department 2192 imagines a future where keeping the streets safe apparently requires considerably more shooting than most traffic departments would recommend. The game comb...

D-Day: The Beginning of the End is not your average “storm the beach” simulator—it’s a grand strategy title that drops you into the nerve-wracking planning ...

Battlespire is the weird, dark cousin of the Elder Scrolls family - the one who shows up late to the reunion with a sword and no pants. This first-person RPG strips out all the com...

The Great Escape is an adventure game inspired by the classic prison-break movie, placing the player inside a World War II prisoner-of-war camp where freedom depends on observation...