abandonware games sorted by popularity

By 1989, Dragon’s Lair had already become legendary in arcades, so its DOS port had a lot to live up to. Spoiler: it couldn’t quite match the arcade’s gorgeous la...

Rendezvous with Rama is an interactive fiction (text adventure) game released in 1984. Telarium, a subsidiary of Spinnaker Software, was known for producing narrative-driven games ...

In Armor Alley, you command a helicopter in a warzone that looks like a side-scrolling office meeting gone wrong. It’s strategy meets action: you must manage resources, deplo...

Gloriana sails into the realm of naval strategy with a focus on historical battles and tactical maneuvering. Ships move with a deliberate pace, and positioning is everything, turni...

Fidelity Chessmaster 2100, released in 1989 for DOS, is chess with a very clear mission: beat you, patiently and without mercy. At the time, it was a serious achievement in compute...

The 1990 adaptation of Tim Burton’s Batman hit DOS screens with a moody mix of driving, platforming, and side-scrolling bat-beatdowns. Batman: The Movie swings between genres...

For those who got hopelessly addicted to the card game inside Final Fantasy VIII, Triple Triad Gold (2000) was like someone saying, “Here, now you can ruin your productivity ...

As sequels go, Serpent Isle is less “more of the same” and more “everything is different, good luck.” Shipwrecked on a strange new land, you’ll deal w...

Warheads is a turn-based artillery game in the grand tradition of blowing your friends to pieces with ridiculous weapons. You control a team of tiny, heavily armed soldiers and tak...

Turbo Pascal 7 (TP7) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed by Borland as an ev...

The Great Giana Sisters is a platform video game developed by Time Warp Productions and published by Rainbow Arts. It was originally released in 1987 for the Commodore 64 and other...

Darkstone tried to ride the Diablo wave in 1999, and honestly, it didn’t do a bad job. With 3D graphics (impressive for the time) and a soundtrack that takes itself way too s...

Forget Sonic. Forget Mario. Zool is a ninja from the Nth Dimension, which is apparently a place where hyperactive insects fight sentient sweets. Speed is the name of the game, and ...

Might and Magic: World of Xeen is what happens when two already massive RPGs decide to shake hands and merge into one enormous adventure. By combining Clouds of Xeen and Darkside o...

Better known as Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior in some regions, Death Sword (1988) is remembered less for its deep gameplay and more for its infamous decapitation move. Swing your...

Before Half-Life, there was Chasm: The Rift, a game where time-traveling mutants explode into limbs and every room looks like it was decorated by a doom-metal band. A first-person ...

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...

Dick Tracy (1990) tries to turn the classic comic-strip detective into a video game, and the result is equal parts charming and clunky. You’ll chase gangsters, dodge bullets,...

By 1997, Lands of Lore 2: Guardians of Destiny was already pushing the limits of DOS RPGs. It abandons the grid-based movement of its predecessor in favor of full 3D exploration, w...

Horror Zombies from the Crypt sounds like it should be terrifying, but in practice it leans more toward quirky than genuinely scary. Released in 1990, it mixes action and adventure...

If spreadsheets are your love language, Capitalism 2 is pure romance. This brutally detailed simulation lets you create your own corporate empire from scratch—manufacturing, ...

The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate is the second installment in the Legend of Kyrandia point and click adventure game series developed by Westwood Studios. It was released in 199...