abandonware games sorted by popularity

Utopia: The Creation of a Nation challenges you to build and manage a society, which sounds noble until everything starts going wrong at once. Released in 1992, it blends simulatio...

Inca is a strange hybrid that feels like three different games stitched together by sheer ambition. One moment you’re managing resources and navigating an empire, the next yo...

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...

Released in 1987, this is less of a simulator and more of a fever dream where you pilot a flying box over a grid pretending to be terrain. 3-D Helicopter Simulator was ambitious fo...

Amberstar is a fantasy old school RPG very similar to Ultima 6 that uses a top-down view for interiors and small locations and a first person pseudo 3D view for everything else. Un...

Before Street Fighter became a cultural juggernaut, it was this humble 1988 DOS brawler where Ryu’s fists felt more like sluggish bricks than blazing fireballs. The controls ...

Battlespire is the weird, dark cousin of the Elder Scrolls family - the one who shows up late to the reunion with a sword and no pants. This first-person RPG strips out all the com...

MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries is a standalone expansion to MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, released in 1996 by Activision. Part of the larger BattleTech universe, the game puts pl...

Named after the famously outspoken baseball manager, Earl Weaver Baseball takes the sport seriously, sometimes almost aggressively so. This isn’t about flashy graphics or arc...

In Star Trek: The Rebel Universe (1988, DOS), the Enterprise is stranded in a dangerous sector where the Federation has gone rogue. You command the crew in an open-world style adve...

Pit Fighter is an arcade-style fighting game that was originally released in arcades in 1990 by Atari Games. It was later ported to various home gaming platforms, including DOS, th...

Knight Orc (1987, DOS/Mac) flips the fantasy script: you’re not the hero, you’re the orc. Tired of being slaughtered by noble knights, you decide it’s payback tim...

Released in 1991, Fantasy World Dizzy is a whimsical adventure that proves even an egg can carry the weight of an entire fantasy quest. The game blends puzzle-solving with explorat...

Fantasy General, released in 1996, takes the structure of classic wargames and wraps it in a richly illustrated fantasy skin. Battles are turn-based and highly tactical, emphasizin...

Take Eddie Murphy’s swagger, remove the charm, add some DOS chiptunes, and you get Beverly Hills Cop—a game adaptation that asks: “What if being a wisecracking de...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Star Trek: First Contact (not to be confused with the later movie) is more puzzle-solving than phaser-firing. You take control of the Enterprise crew as t...

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is a software development tool that enables users to create point-and-click adventure games. It was originally created by Chris Jones and has been used ...

Blake Stone: Planet Strike picks up where the first left off — more aliens, more guns, and more corridors that all look suspiciously alike. Released in 1994 for DOS, it&rsquo...

In Ambush at Sorinor, tactics meet fantasy in a land where ambushing people is apparently the national sport. You’re a mercenary commander picking the right team to win missi...

Also known as Puzzle Bobble, this bubble-popping classic stars those cute dragons from Bubble Bobble, now in competitive puzzle mode. Match three colors, clear the screen, panic as...

In Space Quest 5: The Next Mutation, Roger Wilco finally receives something resembling a promotion. Released in 1993, the game puts him in charge of a spaceship and a crew, which f...

In Curse of Enchantia, a young boy is whisked away to a magical world full of bizarre creatures, tricky puzzles, and an alarming number of ways to die. The game’s whimsical a...