abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1983, Moon Patrol is the game that proved moon driving is a terrible career choice. You control a buggy with a suspension system that would make NASA jealous, jumping o...

Westwood Studios decided to take a break from commanding and conquering to give us Nox, a fast-paced action RPG with more personality than it has any right to. You can play as a wa...

Action Fighter (1989, DOS) is Sega’s way of saying, “Why choose between car chases and aerial dogfights when you can have both?” You start in a motorcycle, grab s...

Running a television station sounds glamorous until every program threatens to destroy your ratings. Mad TV cleverly blends business simulation, humor, and sabotage into an addicti...

Dangerous Dave: Risky Rescue puts Dave back in hero mode, diving into a dangerous compound to rescue his brother. Expect tight platforming, unpredictable enemy patterns, and traps ...

A remake of the arcade classic, CHAMP Asteroids lets you relive the joy of spinning wildly in space and smashing rocks with a tiny triangle-shaped ship. It’s like cosmic road...

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...

There’s a certain audacity in naming a sequel Oh no! More Lemmings, as if the developers knew exactly what they were unleashing upon your already overworked brain. This 1991 ...

Panza Kick Boxing is a video game released in 1990 for the Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, DOS, and ZX Spectrum platforms. It was developed and published by Loriciel. T...

Deus Ex is a critically acclaimed action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released in 2000 and was designed by Warren Spect...

If you like your justice loud and messy, Crime Wave delivers. It’s a side-scrolling shooter set in a dystopian future where the only way to keep order is with a hail of bulle...

Menzoberranzan is a old DOS fantasy first person perspective RPG developed by DreamForge Intertainment in 1994 from an original idea by John McGirk. Menzoberranzan setting is based...

Billy’s babysitter has been abducted by aliens, and he’s not having it. Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter! is the series at its most Saturday-morning-cartoon ...

Ford Simulator 3 (1992, DOS) pushes the formula further, polishing visuals and adding enough variety to feel like a modest evolution rather than a simple update. The driving segmen...

You are Sherlock Holmes, and someone has committed a crime, possibly because they couldn’t handle the game’s UI. 221B Baker Street is a detective board game where your ...

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...

By the time Earthworm Jim hit DOS, its reputation already preceded it, and it largely lived up to the hype. This is a platformer that thrives on absurdity: a worm in a spacesuit, b...

Infocom released Leather Goddesses of Phobos in 1986, delivering one of the most humorous and memorable text adventures ever written. Rather than taking science fiction seriously, ...

In Bionic Commando, you're a soldier with no jumping ability—because who needs knees when you have a grappling arm? Swing through 1988 DOS architecture like a pixelated Tarza...

Populous 2: Trials of the Olympian Gods is a classic sandbox strategy god game. As the title suggests, its setting is loosely based on ancient Greek mythology, and you play as a de...

Indiana Jones: Revenge of the Ancients from 1987 is one of those curious side stories that feels like it emerged from a parallel cinematic universe. Presented as a text-heavy adven...

Released in 1994, All New World of Lemmings gives our suicidal little friends a new lease on life... and new outfits! The puzzles are tougher, the graphics are cleaner, and the fru...

Action Soccer (1995, DOS) is what happens when you try to make a soccer game fun without worrying too much about realism, physics, or gravity. The ball bounces like it’s fill...

Boulder Dash is a classic action-puzzle video game that was first released in 1984 by First Star Software. In Boulder Dash, players control a character named Rockford as he di...

As a prisoner of war, you must find a way to escape a prison in Germany in 1942. The prisoner has a daily routine which will follow if not controlled by the player for a certain am...

Norton Commander was a file manager and editor application released by Peter Norton Computing for DOS. Norton Commander used a text-based user interface with side-by-side pane...

The title Dinosaur Balls might raise eyebrows today, but in 1992 it was just a quirky DOS puzzle game. Think of it as prehistoric Bubble Bobble: you fire colored spheres to match a...