abandonware games sorted by popularity

Ah, the late '90s: when cars exploded for no reason and acronyms made everything cooler. Axelerator: Have a N.I.C.E. day! is a 1997 Windows racer that asks, “What if racing w...

Welcome to the future, where space empires are managed entirely via text and colored dots. Anacreon puts you in charge of an interstellar civilization and lets you conquer galaxies...

She’s pink, she’s fast, and she’s got a bow. CHAMP Ms. Pac-man reimagines the iconic maze-chaser with smooth controls and new levels while keeping that glorious m...

Harley-Davidson: The Road to Sturgis is less about racing and more about the journey, which sounds poetic until you realize the road can be quite unforgiving. You ride across the U...

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 ...

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...

Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor (1997, Windows XP) took the RTS formula and flipped it into a weird deathmatch where you control a single unit and try not to die... horribly. ...

Road Runner is a video game based on the popular Looney Tunes cartoon series featuring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. The game was originally developed by Atari Games and rel...

Conan: The Cimmerian lets you brawl your way through the Hyborian Age like a shirtless rage machine with a sword and questionable dialogue. It’s got all the ingredients: dark...

If you ever wanted to command the Pacific fleet without getting wet, Carrier Strike is your game. Set during WWII, it’s a turn-based wargame where numbers, radar, and weather...

If you ever wanted to play a video game that doubles as a philosophical think piece, A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) is your ride. Released for DOS and Macintosh, this is one of Inf...

Shadowgate (1988, DOS/Windows 3.x/Mac) is a point-and-click adventure that politely invites you into a castle and then gleefully kills you for touching the wrong thing. Armed with ...

MechWarrior (1989) was one of the first games to put players inside a 3D cockpit of a giant mech, but it wasn’t just a combat game, it was also an open-ended mercenary RPG, w...

Back when PC shoot-’em-ups were still proving they could match arcades, Raptor: Call of the Shadows landed like a missile. Fast, crunchy, and blessed with explosions that fee...

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a grave-robbing dwarf with a flair for interior dungeon decoration? Cadaver grants that peculiar wish. As Karadoc, you’ll wander an eer...

If Krazy Ivan (1996, Windows XP) had a motto, it’d be “Blow it up first, ask later.” You pilot a massive mech across post-apocalyptic battlefields, obliterating a...

Imagine X-COM but with fewer excuses to blame the developers when you miss a 95% chance shot—because in UFO 2000 (2004), the chaos was entirely player-driven. A free, open-so...

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 ...

By the time Premier Manager 3 rolled around, the series had cemented its reputation as the thinking fan’s football fix. Released in 1994, it refined the formula once again, o...

Darius Gaiden is a visually stunning side-scrolling shooter where every boss is a giant, weaponized sea creature from a neon-soaked fever dream. You’ll pilot your ship throug...