abandonware games sorted by popularity

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? If that line doesn’t make you want to punch a ninja through a hotdog stand, nothing will. Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja is peak...

NetHack is an open-source roguelike game that's been around since the early 1980s. It's a single-player dungeon exploration game where you navigate your character through a randoml...

X-COM: Terror from the Deep (also known as X-COM 2) is a DOS science fiction tactical strategy game and the sequel to one of the most popular DOS games in history, X-COM: UFO ...

Time travel stories tend to get complicated quickly, and Future Wars: Adventures in Time embraces that chaos with enthusiasm. Released in 1990, this cinematic adventure casts you a...

Unreal Gold is the polished, expanded version of a game that already made a significant impact. Released in 2000, it combines atmospheric exploration with intense action, creating ...

In Gengis Khan, you’re not just playing history—you’re rewriting it with pixelated armies. This 1989 Koei classic lets you lead the great Mongol conqueror (or oth...

Star Crusader is an abandoned science fiction first-person 3D space combat simulator, developed by Take-Two Interactive and published by GameTek in 1994 for both DOS and Amiga plat...

If Star Trek: 25th Anniversary isn’t on your DOS nostalgia list, fix that now. Released in 1992, it’s a point-and-click adventure that actually feels like classic Star ...

In Altered Destiny, a perfectly average guy named P.J. Barrett gets sucked into a bizarre alien dimension because he answered a phone call. Seriously. What follows is a classic poi...

Released in 1992, Barbie for DOS is what happens when someone asks, “What if pink could be a video game?” You play as Barbie on a quest to collect accessories and win K...

Before immersive sims were a buzzword, there was Ultima Underworld. Dropping you into a massive first-person dungeon, it gave players freedom unthinkable at the time. Want to negot...

Beyond Columns is what happens when someone looks at Tetris and says, “What if we made it... slightly fancier?” This match-three puzzle game involves dropping shiny col...

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game from 1989 takes the same beloved film and asks a crucial question: what if archaeology required more jumping? This adaptation tr...

Heimdall blends action and strategy in a way that feels ambitious, placing you in a mythological setting where decisions matter as much as reflexes. Managing resources, recruiting ...

IndyCar Racing is a racing simulation video game developed by Papyrus Design Group and published by Virgin Interactive. Released in 1993 for MS-DOS, it marked a significant step fo...

One-Nil Soccer Manager is a text-based soccer management simulation game that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed for various home computer systems, inc...

Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon is gloriously over-the-top, starring a hero who looks like he walked out of a Saturday morning cartoon and into a global conspiracy. The digi...

Welcome to a future where zooming through tunnels and dodging neon obstacles is considered heroic. Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom is a proto-3D arcade shooter that tries its best to i...

Falcon 3.0 arrived in 1991 and decided that realism wasn’t enough: it wanted obsession. This sequel didn’t just improve graphics and sound, it doubled down on systems, ...

Flashback: The Quest for Identity feels like a playable sci-fi movie that misplaced its budget but kept its ambition. You wake up with amnesia, which is gaming shorthand for &ldquo...

Aquanoid (1992) takes the classic Breakout formula and throws it underwater, because bricks are apparently much more intimidating when they're wet. You control a paddle, you bounce...

Eight Ball Deluxe is digital pinball with a swagger, the kind that wears mirrored sunglasses indoors and dares you to beat its high score. Based on the famous Bally table, this 199...

1893: A World's Fair Mystery is an interactive fiction game developed by the American studio Illuminated Lantern and released in 2002. Set during the Chicago World's Columbian Expo...

Quest for Glory III: Wages of War is an adventure/role-playing game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1992. The player takes on the role of the Hero, who has journe...