abandonware games sorted by popularity

A loving parody of science fiction tropes, EGA Trek takes obvious inspiration from Star Trek and runs with it, humor first. You command a starship, making decisions that range from...

Ever dreamed of running a transatlantic zeppelin empire during the golden age of flight? Zeppelin: Giants of the Sky lets you do just that — and it’s every bit as niche...

Captain Blood is a space exploration video game released in 1988. It was developed by the French company ERE Informatique, and it was designed by Philippe Ulrich and Didier Bouchon...

Caution: subtlety not included. Blue Angel 69, released in 1989 for DOS, is basically what happens when a programmer tries to mix erotic art with a tile-based puzzle game and ends ...

ARJ is a file compression utility and file format created by Robert K. Jung. The name "ARJ" stands for "Archived by Robert Jung." It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s a...

Solomon's Key is a 1988 puzzle-platform game in which the player controls a wizard attempting to navigate rooms filled with enemies, traps, ladders, and blocks that can be created ...

Microsoft Flight Simulator 3.0 continues the ambitious tradition of allowing ordinary computer users to experience the joys and responsibilities of piloting an aircraft. Players ca...

Dylan Dog: Through the Looking Glass takes the surrealism of the comics and dives headfirst into nightmare territory. Imagine Carroll’s Wonderland rewritten by Lovecraft and ...

Ah, BurgerTime. The game that asked the important question: what if we made a platformer about a tiny chef assembling giant burgers while being chased by sentient hot dogs? You gui...

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...

If you've ever stared at a camel and thought, "What if it shot lasers and had a personal grudge against humanity?", Attack of the Mutant Camels is the fever dream you've been waiti...

If you’ve ever thought, “What if Pac-Man got lost in a modernist art gallery?”, then A-Maze is your oddly specific dream come true. Released in 1989 for DOS, this...

In Ambush at Sorinor, tactics meet fantasy in a land where ambushing people is apparently the national sport. You’re a mercenary commander picking the right team to win missi...

Released in 1989, Ghostbusters 2 gives you another shot at wrangling ectoplasm with the world’s most overqualified exterminators. Inspired by the movie sequel, it’s equ...

Sherlock: The Game of Logic is a 1991 DOS puzzle game that puts deductive reasoning firmly in the spotlight. Rather than chasing villains through dark streets, players tackle a col...

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...

SimEarth is one of Maxis's most ambitious simulations, allowing players to experiment with the development of an entire planet rather than merely a city. Released in 1990, it model...

Welcome to the most stressful job in the world - rendered in glorious 1985 DOS graphics! Air Traffic Controller lets you experience the thrill of herding aircraft without the luxur...

Hoyle Classic Card Games is the digital equivalent of a well-stocked card table, offering a variety of games to suit different tastes. Released in 1993, it combines accessibility w...

Released in 1987, Falcon is the kind of flight simulator that politely informs you, within minutes, that you are not nearly as smart as you thought. This isn’t an arcade joyr...

Operation Getafix (1989) is what happens when you turn a beloved comic series into a game with the precision of a wild boar wearing gloves. You play as Asterix on a quest to help G...

Conqueror is what happens when a tank simulator and an arcade game go on a date and forget their purpose. You drive a tank in a pseudo-3D landscape, blow up stuff, and command squa...

Heretic is what happens when someone looks at fantasy and thinks it needs more fireballs and a lot more attitude. Built on familiar shooter foundations, it swaps sci-fi corridors f...

In 1989, Deathtrack tried to answer a question nobody asked: “What if NASCAR had machine guns?” The result is a futuristic racer where speed and firepower go hand in ha...

The year is 1995, and Abuse brings us one of the slickest, darkest run-and-gun shooters ever to crawl out of a DOS/Linux/Mac basement. You play a guy in prison for a crime he didn&...

American Conquest is the kind of game that throws hundreds of little soldiers at you and says, "Good luck, General!" Set during the early colonization of the Americas, this RTS ble...

Empire Deluxe is the kind of strategy game that politely pretends to be simple while quietly stealing entire weekends from your life. On the surface, it’s a turn-based war ga...