4 Sites Where You Can Download Old PC Games For Free
There are sufficient free games available for the budget gamer, many of which we’ve already reviewed on MakeUseOf, but it’s not the only alternative.
Sometimes, developers choose to re-release their games as freeware, or sometimes they simply neglect to support their creations and let the support dwindle away. Whatever the reason, a lot of commercial games – which, admittedly, often work with a bigger team on a bigger budget – become free over time.
Today we’ll take a look at the best sites to download old PC games for free. These will include (abandonware) DOS games, but also newer releases that are thrown to the masses by publishers in a good mood.
Abandonia
Abandonia is an index of abandonware, “dedicated to classic DOS games”. Abandonware titles are games (or software) with expired copyright, or games which are no longer supported by the publisher.
The site was founded in 1999, when the concept of abandonware was merely two years old. After a few inactive years, it was and has continued to blossom, with new ‘abandoned’ games added nearly every day. At the time of writing, the Abandonia database hosts 1,063 downloadable games and counts a total of more than 100.000 members.
Most games get a thorough review, screenshots, an editor rating as well as a user rating. You can browse and download old pc games by name, year, rating and category. As the game’s focused on DOS games, you won’t find any of the ‘newer’ abandonware games here, but the vast DOS archive should satisfy most of your gaming needs — at least for a while.
DOS Museum
Another DOS focused site – the name gives it away – is DOS Museum. Their goal is to preserve old DOS games and make sure they won’t be lost over time. Through one of their other initiatives, they try to encourage other copyright into making their work available, “either for sale or as freeware”.
With over 1,600 resources (although this includes various patches and save-games), DOS Museum offers an even wider array of games. Through an easy, graphical interface, you can browse the games by name, rating, date or popularity. Although you won’t find excessive reviews like on Abandonware, basic information (usually in two or three sentences) is provided.
Wikipedia
One of the best sites to look for an ex-commercial video game is Wikipedia. That’s right – on one of their pages, they keep a pretty up-to-date list of abandonware (loose interpretation) titles.
The list shows less games than these other sites, but from a wider array. You’ll find games from 1988 to 2008, all of them with a short descripton, most of them worth a try. If you think there’s a game ‘missing’ from the list that should be there, you can add it yourself – after all, that’s what wikis are for.
Remain In Play
Another site that takes on a wider array of (also non-DOS) games is Remain In Play. This site refuses to take in abandonware and games that were free from the start. They only focus on commercial games that were deliberately released as freeware.
Even though site navigation is not optimal, they host plenty of great games – both new and old. If your search is superfluous, you might want to consider their ‘top 10 games’ in the sidebar, for it is the only way of sorting titles by rating. Otherwise, you can search their database by name, data (type), genre, or OS.
I hope you’ve found some great new sites today and will continue to discover cool free games to waste your precious time. If you’ve got any other “abandonware” recommendations, or have anything else to add in that direction, feel free to take advantage of the comments section below.
(By) Simon is a student and tech enthusiast from Belgium. On MakeUseOf, he's the primary gaming writer and eBook editor. Check Simon out @ http://meme.yahoo.com/slangen/
Don’t forget Liberated Games: http://liberatedgames.com/
Also allow me to introduce my own blog which is geared to reviewing some 900 DOS games. No download links provided but if you’re clever you can probably find the games yourself: http://letsplayoldies.wordpress.com
You can add Mr Old games it is a very good site.
also http://www.theoldcomputer.com/MainMenu.htm
Wonderful posting . Very informative and descriptive one. This is very useful and valuable. Thanks for posting.
http://www.dosgames.com is really good too!
home of the underdogs is still around
http://www.hotud.org/
Don’t forget the game site “theunderdog.org”.
Liked the post! The way you explained everything is much appreciated! Will definitely return.
yea nice list, also home of the underdogs an old skool classic games site is back, http://hotud.org/ , nice to see them return…
Wow, amazing resources, thanks for sharing!
RT
Read Wired’s Top 10 Eighties Computer Games Worth Playing (Again) for abandonware inspiration!
Note to self, those are not PC games, those are NES games…
So… you do realize those are console games in the pic.. you know.. in an article about “PC Games”.
just sain..
err, easter egg?
No, you’re right, that’s a slight error.
Not free, but Good Old Games has old school PC games for $5-$10. They removed all the DRM and updated the code for compatibility with modern Windows systems. They also include PDF manuals and extras like concept art and wallpaper. I was on the site recently and picked up Battle Chess Deluxe and the Oddworld series — very cool to relive my favorite games again.
Awesome! I love old classics like Monkey Island.
jsut search for “abandonware” on google and you can get almsot every game..
gog.com is good too. They only have a few free games, but the rest are reasonably prices ($5.99 – $9.99) and are all DRM free!
“Abandonware titles are games (or software) with expired copyright”
There is no such thing. Copyright is so freaking long that anything that has an expired copyright is older than computers. No software, of course, is older than computers, so no software copyright has ever expired.
You also fail to warn readers that downloading “abandoned” games is illegal in most countries. Unless the copyright owner has specifically denied copyright (public domain) or has otherwise authorized its free distribution, then it is still copyrighted. I suppose you expect us to already know that, but your article sort of implies otherwise, that downloading these games is legal.
I looked the definition up again after your remark. In most cases it means that the copyright indeed hasn’t been revoked, but that the copyright ownership is unclear (due to diverging reasons). Thusly downloading isn’t exactly ‘illegal’ either.
OLD GAMES ROCK!
electronic cigarette
Yeah, that explanation Simon sounds like a really awesome excuse to pirate stuff.
Amazing list. The problem with a lot of sites you’ll find that supposedly host older games is that they’re too chock full of ads to navigate through, or they only have crappy games, or…one of several other issues that make trying to find classic games a pain in the butt.
Remain in Play is a new one for me, so thanks for that. Also had no idea you could use Wikipedia to find some older games. Most excellent!
Great list. Classic Games has some old pc games done in flash on such as Rick Dangerous and Street Fighter.
Thanks for the crapware sites you moron !
This website has a good handful of “abandonwarez” games as well as soundtracks. also, demos, videos, screenshots etc. of the genre.
I see that System Shock is pictured there under Abandonia. I’m playing that right now. I didn’t get it from there or any site, though.
About the copyright issue that was brought up earlier. That’s actually quite correct. Abandonware or Oldwarez is a grey area. Those sites under the Abandonware Ring were shut down years ago because of their activities.
links for free games download sites can also be found on http://www.freegamesdownload.co.za
Thank u for ur information
Want Full Free Version Games ,
You Get it at http://www.zerononsense.co.cc
NFs Shift
Year: 2009
Genres: Arcade / Racing (Cars) / Simulator / 3D
Developer: Slightly Mad Studios / EA Black Box
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: PC
Well done. The real thieves are here.
Are you leaving out Squakenet!? It’s the biggest abandonware archive as far as I know. Quite good design and always up to date with a particular automatic system.
Old pc games! this is really good way to get old pc games from such sites and quite helpful for those who have been waiting for this from long time.
Don’t forget a modern list of mostly open-source games. Cross platform games