abandonware games sorted by popularity

Incursion is a modern love letter to classic tactical RPGs, clearly inspired by tabletop rulesets and games like early Fallout. It throws you into a turn-based world where position...

Think running an airline is easy? Airlines (1994) says “think again.” This old-school management sim hands you a failing fleet and a world map, then laughs quietly as y...

F-16 Combat Pilot throws you into the sleek, agile Fighting Falcon and says, “Good luck, pilot,” before pushing you straight into the chaos of modern air warfare. What ...

Anvil of Dawn is what happens when 1995 tries to reinvent the fantasy RPG and ends up creating something strangely beautiful. It’s first-person, it’s real-time, and it&...

In this 1987 DOS game, you delve into a dungeon filled with traps and monsters. Solve puzzles, defeat enemies, and uncover the secrets of the forge. It's like playing Dungeons &...

Sam and Max Hit the Road is a 1993 adventure classic starring the freelance police duo Sam, a polite detective dog, and Max, an enthusiastic rabbit with absolutely no respect for n...

Creatures 2 takes the strange virtual-pet experiment of its predecessor and makes it considerably more ambitious. The Norns return, complete with their ability to learn, reproduce,...

Ford Simulator 1 (1987, DOS) is equal parts driving demo and corporate handshake, inviting you to sample shiny vehicles without leaving your desk. You cruise digital roads, admire ...

Now with 27% more diplomacy and 300% more frustration! Axis and Allies: Iron Blitz (1999) takes everything from the original game and throws in extra scenarios, improved AI, and mo...

Independence War 2: Edge Of Chaos refines its predecessor’s ideas into a more open-ended and player-driven experience. Trading, piracy, and exploration play a much larger rol...

In Commander Keen 5: The Armageddon Machine, Keen infiltrates a massive space station engineered to obliterate planets like it’s swatting flies. This is Keen at his most tech...

Tetris 2.0 attempts to spice up the classic formula with a few twists, like a chef adding unexpected ingredients to a beloved recipe. Sometimes it works, sometimes you miss the ori...

The Legacy: Realm of Terror is a dark first-person RPG that throws you into a genuinely unpleasant supernatural world. Rather than offering heroic castles and cheerful fantasy vill...

Questprobe featuring Human Torch and The Thing is a 1985 adventure game that brings two very different Marvel heroes together for a challenge involving exploration, puzzles, and su...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Fast Break is basketball distilled into pure late-80s computer logic. Don’t expect flashy presentation or TV-style commentary; instead, you get a to...

Aldo’s Adventure is what you get when someone squints at Donkey Kong and decides to remake it after four cups of coffee and a long nap. You play Aldo, a brave little guy whos...

Skale Tracker is a music tracker designed for composing and arranging electronic music on a computer, continuing a tradition that began with classic tracker software on Amiga and D...

Screamer (1995) was the moment when PC gamers realized DOS could, in fact, go fast. A blistering arcade racer inspired by Daytona USA, it delivered glossy graphics, roaring engines...

In Airball (1987), you don’t play a knight, a space marine, or a plumber - you play a literal ball of air. Trapped in an isometric nightmare of spikes, fans, and poison gas, ...

Mech Commander: Gold (1999) is tactical perfection for fans of giant robots and careful planning. Set in the BattleTech universe, the game puts you in command of a mercenary squad ...

Boppin (1994, DOS) is a puzzle game that starts out cute and then sucker-punches you with its sinister undertone—literally. You throw blocks to match symbols, release trapped...

Before Titanic was a movie with a lot of weeping, there was Beyond the Titanic, a text adventure where surviving the iceberg is just the beginning. The game takes the historic disa...

Miniature golf is already a whimsical sport, but Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf decides Earth simply isn’t strange enough. Released in 1995, this quirky DOS game sends...

Perry Mason is a 1985 adventure game based on the famous fictional lawyer, bringing courtroom drama and investigation to the computer screen. Players take the role of Perry Mason, ...

Azalta: Cult of the Raven is what happens when a lone developer says, “I can make an RPG better than Ultima!” and sort of does. Released in 1996, this DOS dungeon crawl...

Vette! is a driving game built around the unmistakable spectacle of cruising a high-performance Corvette through San Francisco. Instead of confining you to a neat racing circuit, t...

Unnatural Selection is a quirky strategy game from 1993 that asks a simple question: what if evolution had a sense of humor? You’re tasked with guiding creatures through generati...

Flight of the Intruder aims for authenticity, placing you in the tense skies of Vietnam-era missions. This isn’t a carefree joyride; every sortie carries weight, from meticul...

If you’ve ever looked at a map of the Pacific theater in World War II and thought, “Yes, but what if I micromanaged all of it?”, Gary Grigsby’s Pacific War ...

Imagine being a bouncing ball in a series of floating sky islands full of monsters, traps, and puzzles. Welcome to Cloud Kingdoms, where the laws of physics politely take a backsea...