abandonware games sorted by rating

Sid Meier took one look at Earth and said, “Let’s leave this dump.” Thus, Alpha Centauri (1999, Windows XP) was born - a 4X strategy game that takes Civilization ...

R-Type is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up developed and published by Irem in 1987. The game quickly gained popularity for its challenging gameplay and impressive graphics at ...

You are Sherlock Holmes, and someone has committed a crime, possibly because they couldn’t handle the game’s UI. 221B Baker Street is a detective board game where your ...

If you’ve ever thought The Lord of the Rings needed more ASCII and fewer hobbit feelings, Angband is your jam. Since 1992, this dungeon-crawling roguelike has been throwing p...

Donkey Kong is a landmark video game franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and first released by Nintendo in 1981. The original arcade game introduced players to a narrative where ...

If you ever wanted to explore endless, procedurally generated tunnels filled with monsters, traps, and the occasional existential crisis, Dungeon Crawl is your kind of misery. Rele...

Might and Magic Book One: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum is a classic first-person role-playing video game (RPG) released in 1986 for DOS and other platforms. It was developed and...

Then there’s Martian Dreams, the Ultima game where you travel to Mars in the 19th century with none other than Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s as delightfully...

Lost Dutchman Mine (1989, DOS) is what happens when you mix an old western, an adventure game, and a survival simulator — and somehow it works. You’re a prospector with...

If Sorcerer Lord was about controlling armies, Sorcerian (1990, DOS) zooms in to the party level — a side-scrolling RPG that’s as odd as it is ambitious. You build a te...

This sequel takes the same D&D-in-space formula and tries to go bigger, bolder, and... okay, maybe just more complicated. Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed continues the galactic strug...

Stonekeep is a first-person role-playing game (RPG) developed by Interplay Entertainment. It was released for MS-DOS in 1995 and later for other platforms such as Windows and Macin...

Star Crusader is an abandoned science fiction first-person 3D space combat simulator, developed by Take-Two Interactive and published by GameTek in 1994 for both DOS and Amiga plat...

Armored Fist is all about tanks. Big, heavy, no-nonsense tanks. It's essentially a driving sim for people who think speed is overrated and armor is fashion. Missions involve slow, ...

Dangerous Dave is the kind of platformer that defined the early ’90s shareware scene: simple, fast, and just tricky enough to make you shout at your monitor. You guide Dave t...

Set in the far-off future of 1992, Battle Chess 4000 brings space-age flair to intergalactic checkmate. Now your queen is a laser-wielding dominatrix and your pawns might be robots...

Darklands is what happens when medieval Europe gets even darker than it already was. This 1992 RPG drops you into the Holy Roman Empire, but don’t expect knights in shining a...

It Came from the Desert is an abandonware action-adventure game developed by Cinemaware and released in 1990 for PC (DOS) and Amiga. It Came From the Desert is an action-adventure ...

In Archimedean Dynasty, humanity did the logical thing after wrecking the surface world: moved underwater and started shooting each other in submarines. It's part tactical sim, par...

The sequel no one expected takes our trench-coated hero from gothic horror to gangster ghost story. Yes, Alone in the Dark 2 (1993, DOS) swaps Lovecraftian horror for Tommy guns an...

If Risk and Excel had a baby during WWII, it would be Clash of Steel. You command nations, move armies, manage production, and try to stop history from repeating itself—usual...