abandonware games sorted by popularity

Castle Adventure is what happens when a medieval fantasy RPG gets crammed into a game smaller than your average selfie. ASCII graphics? Check. Typing commands like “GET SWORD...

King's Quest III: To Heir is Human takes an unexpected turn by casting players as Gwydion, a servant trapped under the watchful eye of an evil wizard. Escaping requires careful pla...

Ka-50 Hokum drops players into the cockpit of one of the Soviet Union's most intimidating attack helicopters and expects them to earn their wings the hard way. This is not an arcad...

A game with a name like Battle Isle 93: The Moon of Chromos clearly means business. Released in 1993, it’s an expansion-slash-standalone with new missions, harder AI, and an ...

In Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Sierra took the Wild West and decided it needed more jokes, more puns, and significantly more medical malpractice. Released in 1993, this po...

In Battle Chess 2: Chinese Chess (1990), the classic formula gets an eastern makeover—complete with new rules, a new board, and a fresh batch of animated fatalities. If you t...

Might and Magic 7: For Blood and Honor marks the series’ leap into full 3D exploration, and the result feels like stepping from a dusty library of spellbooks into a bustling ...

Beach volleyball rarely received much attention in classic gaming, making Kings of the Beach a refreshing surprise. Fast-paced matches combine accessible controls with enough tacti...

In 1998, Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War decided the world needed fewer corridors and more cosmic dogfights. Instead of bumping into walls like a drunken astronaut, you&rs...

Not many people know that the first games created by Sid Meier were flight simulations. Solo Flight was published by MicroProse in 1983 for Commodore 64, Apple II, Atari, and a yea...

Snake Logan is back, and this time the lab is... hidden! The Hidden Lab cranks up the challenge with more grotesque mutants, more lethal traps, and slightly improved sarcasm. It&rs...

Before heroes had inventory screens and voice acting, there was Adventure in Serenia, the lovechild of a text parser and a fever dream. Released in 1982, this proto-graphic adventu...

Catenaccio! Passion! Endless tactics! Championship Manager 2: The Italian Leagues delivers Serie A drama in spreadsheet form. You may not smell the espresso or hear the vuvuzelas, ...

Space Harrier is a 3rd-person view rail-shooter developed by Sega in 1985. Space Harrier was a hit in the arcades, and later it was converted for a number of platforms, including D...

Back in 1990, Legend of Faerghail was what you played if you wanted a role-playing experience both grand and slightly unforgiving. A German-developed RPG, it combined dungeon crawl...

MicroProse Soccer is an abandoned action-oriented soccer game, developed by Sensible Software and released by MicroProse Software in 1988. The appeal of MicroProse Soccer was its s...

Hexen: Beyond Heretic expands on its predecessor with a confidence that borders on theatrical. The world is darker, the puzzles more intricate, and the overall experience richer, t...

Secret of the Silver Blades is a fantasy RPG set in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons universe, developed and released by SSI Strategic Simulations Inc. in 1990 for DOS, Macintos...

Black & White (2001) is what happens when a god game gets a bit too literal. You play as a deity, complete with a giant hand, an enormous ego, and a giant pet that poops on vil...

In 1989, Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals expanded the series by allowing players to control both Larry and the capable Passionate Patti...

Before WWII games flooded the market, Knights of the Desert (1983, DOS) was already reenacting the North African campaign in pixels. You command Rommel’s Afrika Korps—o...

As sequels go, Serpent Isle is less “more of the same” and more “everything is different, good luck.” Shipwrecked on a strange new land, you’ll deal w...

Space 1889 (1990, DOS) is steampunk before steampunk was cool. Based on the tabletop RPG, it sends you to an alternate Victorian era where the British Empire has expanded — t...

Paranormal agents, conspiracy theories, and point-and-click puzzles that would make even a ghost sigh in frustration. Bureau 13 is like The X-Files if Mulder and Scully spent more ...