abandonware games sorted by popularity

There’s something oddly hypnotic about Gapper, a game that feels like it was assembled during a coffee-fueled night by someone who really liked simple mechanics and didn&rsqu...

The Gene Machine is a quirky point-and-click adventure with a colorful comic-book style, a bizarre cast, and a story that happily wanders into territory where ordinary logic should...

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...

Released in 1988, Alien Fires 2199 AD looks and plays like someone tried to translate a fever dream into a sci-fi RPG. You control some dude with a chin of steel and a crew that se...

Released in 1985, _Jet_ is one of those early flight simulators that reminds players how much imagination was required before photorealistic graphics became the norm. Taking contro...

If System Shock was a warning, System Shock 2 is the full-blown nightmare that follows. This time, the horror seeps into every corner of the experience, blending RPG mechanics with...

Patton vs. Rommel is a 1987 strategy game that brings two legendary World War II commanders into a battle of tactics, planning, and careful decision-making. Players take control of...

Wing Commander 2: Vengeance of the Kilrathi builds on its predecessor with a larger story, more elaborate missions, and an even stronger sense that your career as a fighter pilot i...

Alien Rampage (1996) is what happens when Duke Nukem gets stranded on a hostile alien planet and decides subtlety is for cowards. It’s a side-scrolling shooter dripping with ...

Strap in and crawl through the mud - Airborne Ranger (1988) is here to chew bubblegum and infiltrate enemy lines. And it's all out of bubblegum. This tactical action game lets you ...

Grand Prix Circuit is a fascinating early attempt at turning real-world racing into something playable without requiring a steering wheel the size of your desk. In Grand Prix Circu...

Think you’re good at making tough decisions under pressure? Advanced Civilization dares you to prove it by turning diplomacy into passive-aggressive warfare. Based on the cla...

A gentle adventure inspired by the animated film, Once Upon a Forest (1995, DOS) delivers an eco-friendly story wrapped in side-scrolling gameplay. You guide three tiny forest crea...

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 ...

Wing Commander 3 takes the series into a more cinematic era, combining space combat with live-action sequences and a considerably more ambitious presentation. You once again face t...

In Infidel, you play a not-so-noble adventurer whose moral compass is spinning like a broken ceiling fan. As a treasure-hungry explorer poking around an ancient Egyptian tomb, you ...

Black Monday (1987) combines economic panic with the thrill of—wait for it—spreadsheet navigation. It's like Wolf of Wall Street without the fun, drugs, or DiCaprio. Yo...

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...

3-Demon from 1983 is basically Pac-Man with a taste for LSD. You’re in a first-person maze, munching dots while glowing ghosts try to ruin your day. It’s surprisingly c...

Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula expands the original space exploration formula with a larger galaxy, new worlds, alien civilizations, trading opportunities, and anot...

Released in 1995, Lemmings 3D boldly transported the beloved puzzle series into a fully three-dimensional world. The familiar objective remains unchanged, but rotating the camera a...

Veil of Darkness is a gothic action adventure that mixes exploration, puzzles, combat, and a healthy supply of supernatural misery. You find yourself stranded in a remote region do...

War never changes—but it does get oddly cute in Cannon Fodder. Guide your tiny commandos through missions filled with explosions, carnage, and dark humor. The game mixes arca...

In 1983, Battlezone asked: what if vector graphics could give you war-induced vertigo? You’re in a tank, in a wireframe world, fighting other tanks. That’s it. But it&r...

The Crack of Doom is an old-school adventure with a title that sounds considerably more dramatic than the average Tuesday afternoon, and the game does its best to live up to it. Ex...

Turbo OutRun brings Sega's famous arcade driving style to the home computer, putting the player behind the wheel of a fast sports car and asking a very simple question: how long ca...

Autodesk Animator Pro was a serious animation package for DOS at a time when creating computer animation required considerably more patience than it does today. It provided tools f...

Populous: The Beginning is a 1998 strategy game that transforms the classic god simulation series into a more traditional real-time strategy experience. Players control a shaman an...

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 ...

Released in 1987, this game has you waking up in a toilet stall with no memory of who you are. As detective Ace Harding, you must clear your name and restore your memories. It's li...