abandonware games sorted by popularity

Bolo Ball is a DOS game from the mid-1990s. It features a physics-based gameplay where the objective is to knock opponent balls out of an arena. When you start the game, you find y...

Released in 1986, James Bond 007: Goldfinger adapted one of the most beloved Bond stories into a text-heavy adventure experience. Rather than relying on fast reflexes, players must...

DOSBox is an open-source emulator that allows you to run software and games designed for the MS-DOS operating system on modern computers. As you probably already know, MS-DOS was a...

Hardball 4 arrives with the kind of confidence that suggests it has been paying attention to feedback, and it shows. The game offers more options, better visuals, and a deeper sens...

Football Manager 3 (1993, DOS) trades grass stains for spreadsheets and proves that tension can thrive in numbers. You’re not scoring goals; you’re negotiating contract...

Crusaders of the Dark Savant is a sprawling saga with enough content to make your eyes bleed and your fingers cramp. The game blends strategy, exploration, and role-playing with a ...

Cosmic Spacehead is a cheerful point-and-click adventure wrapped in platformer segments, starring a purple alien who’s equal parts explorer and goofball. You’ll travel ...

Maniac Mansion is one of the most famous point-and-click adventure games developed by Lucasfilm Games, designed by Ron Gilbert (who later created Monkey Island) and Gary Winnick. T...

Far Cry arrived in 2004 looking like a postcard from paradise and playing like a survival exam you didn’t study for. Set on sun-drenched tropical islands, it lures you in wit...

This 1986 DOS classic sounds way cooler than it is — ACE: Air Combat Emulator promises combat, but delivers what feels like flying a lawnmower through molasses. Still, for it...

Maupiti Island (1991) is what happens when classic detective fiction meets tropical paranoia. You arrive on a peaceful-looking island for a relaxing vacation, only to discover that...

Step into the gray, morally ambiguous world of corporate domination with Big Business. It’s Monopoly with fewer dice and more spreadsheets. Crush your competitors, manipulate...

Before there was Baldur’s Gate or Skyrim, there was DND. This 1984 DOS dungeon crawler is as old-school as it gets, complete with ASCII graphics, endless hallways, and monste...

1893: A World's Fair Mystery is an interactive fiction game developed by the American studio Illuminated Lantern and released in 2002. Set during the Chicago World's Columbian Expo...

Ready to guess wildly about the cost of household objects from the comfort of a DOS screen? The Price is Right (1990, DOS) brings the TV game show to your keyboard with a mixture o...

Fade to Black (1995) aims high and mostly lands on its feet, delivering a cinematic science-fiction adventure that feels ambitious even today. As a sequel to Flashback, it keeps th...

An expansion to the original, Cossacks: The Art of War refines, expands, and generally cranks up the chaos. New units, new campaigns, and more ways to accidentally bankrupt your na...

With Battle Isle 2200 (1994), the series goes full 3D cinematic—with cutscenes so dramatic you’d think they were auditioning for a soap opera in space. The gameplay is ...

Come one, come all, to the saddest circus ever pixelated. In Ballyhoo, you're stuck in a depressing carnival trying to solve a kidnapping while dealing with clowns, carnies, and th...

Before there was Capitalism 2, there was Capitalism Plus, which basically took the original and added a few bells, whistles, and ways to fail spectacularly. It’s like being h...

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a criminal economist in 1980s New York, Drug Wars has your fix—pun intended. This early DOS classic throws you into t...

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...

Blades of Exile is a classic role-playing video game developed by Spiderweb Software. It's the third installment in the "Exile" series. The game was released in 1997 for Mac OS, an...

Before its sequel, there was Dark Reign: The Future of War (1997), a forward-thinking RTS that introduced mechanics ahead of its time, like customizable AI scripts for units. The r...