The most popular abandonware shooter games

Virtua Cop 2 takes the arcade shooting formula of its predecessor and expands it with larger environments, more enemies, and even more opportunities to behave like a movie police o...

Mega Man X4 is a side-scrolling action-platformer video game released by Capcom for Windows, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn in 1997 and 1998. It is part of the Mega Man X series...

House of the Dead is an unapologetically intense rail shooter that throws subtlety out the window and replaces it with zombies. Released in 1998, it delivers fast-paced action, dra...

Virtua Cop brings Sega's arcade light-gun shooting formula to the PC, turning the player into a one-person police department with a remarkably short tolerance for criminals. The ga...

Although best known on consoles, Mega Man also reached DOS players with its trademark blend of demanding platforming and memorable robot bosses. Every stage introduces distinct haz...

Mega Man X3 refines the already successful formula with additional armor upgrades, powerful ride vehicles, and the welcome ability to briefly control Zero under specific circumstan...

Before he was shooting Mecha-Hitler in Wolfenstein 3D, B.J. Blazkowicz was chasing the actual biblical spear that pierced Jesus. Spear of Destiny is the lesser-known prequel, but n...

Robocop is a 1989 DOS action game based on the iconic film, putting players inside the heavily armored body of the cybernetic police officer. The gameplay focuses on shooting crimi...

Quake is a 1996 first-person shooter that helped redefine what players expected from PC action games. Its dark, industrial environments, grotesque enemies, powerful weapons, and fu...

Xenon 2: Megablast is a classic shoot'em up developed by Bitmap Brothers and released by Image Works in 1990 for DOS and for a plethora of other systems. Xenon was good, Xenon 2 wa...

When Bungie released Marathon, it offered far more than fast shooting by combining exciting combat with an unusually deep science fiction narrative delivered through computer termi...

Released in 1996 for DOS, this beast is not a new game so much as an ultra-hard remix of Doom II, crafted by level designers who apparently thought “too much ammo” was ...

Doom was released by id Software in 1993. It is widely regarded as one of the most influential and groundbreaking video games of all time, particularly within the first-person shoo...

Before he became better known as Alien Carnage, Halloween Harry blasted onto DOS PCs in 1993 with fast action, crude humor, and zero interest in subtlety. You play Harry, armed to ...

Return to Castle Wolfenstein revives the classic Wolfenstein name with a modern first-person shooter built around secret laboratories, Nazi experiments, supernatural forces, and an...

Star Goose! is a 1988 arcade-style space shooter with a wonderfully eccentric title and an equally straightforward mission: fly through hostile environments, shoot enemies, and try...

If Doom was the apocalypse, Doom II: Hell on Earth was the encore nobody asked for but everyone wanted. Released in 1994, it doubled down on everything: bigger maps, nastier monste...

Mega Man Legends takes Capcom's famous blue hero in a very different direction from his traditional side-scrolling adventures. Instead of running through neatly arranged platforms,...

Contra: Locked and Loaded is like caffeine in video game form—fast, explosive, and just a little dangerous for your health. You’re running, you’re gunning, and yo...

Welcome to a future where zooming through tunnels and dodging neon obstacles is considered heroic. Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom is a proto-3D arcade shooter that tries its best to i...

Wings of Fury is a compact aerial action game that puts you behind the controls of a fighter aircraft and wastes little time explaining why the sky is currently full of people tryi...

River Raid remake is a 1995 DOS reinterpretation of the classic vertically scrolling shooter, bringing the familiar thrill of flying low over rivers, forests, bridges, and enemy in...

Spacewar is one of the earliest digital computer games and is often considered the first interactive video game. It was created in 1962 by Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, and Wayne W...

Heretic is what happens when someone looks at fantasy and thinks it needs more fireballs and a lot more attitude. Built on familiar shooter foundations, it swaps sci-fi corridors f...

Solar Winds 2: Galaxy continues the space exploration and trading adventure established by its predecessor, giving players a large science-fiction environment to explore. The game ...

R-Type is a 1989 shoot 'em up that brings the relentless arcade action of the famous space shooter to DOS. Players pilot a small spacecraft through hostile environments packed with...

Project-X is a 1994 shoot 'em up that delivers intense arcade action with fast gameplay, powerful weapons, and waves of enemies determined to fill the screen. Players control a spa...

Here’s where Duke goes full legend. Duke Nukem 3D isn’t just a shooter; it’s a cultural moment. The game exploded onto DOS with outrageous humor, interactive envi...

Before “yippee-ki-yay” became gaming shorthand for chaos, Die Hard (1989) tried to capture the movie’s skyscraper shootout on DOS. You play as John McClane, trapp...

Before Doom, there was Catacomb Abyss, where you throw fireballs down corridors at zombies who all apparently graduated from the same school of slow shuffling. It's a first-person ...