abandonware games sorted by popularity

Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge is a role-playing game (RPG) developed by Sir-Tech and released in 1990. It's the sixth installment in the long-running "Wizardry" series.&nbs...

Virus is a fast, strange little arcade game that feels as though someone took a futuristic flying machine, dropped it into a hostile landscape, and then removed any concern for sen...

In Castle Master, you get dropped into a spooky polygonal castle and told, “Figure it out.” And that’s it. Early 3D graphics make every wall look like it was pain...

In Bert and the Snake, you are Bert. And yes, there's a snake. That’s the plot. It’s a maze game from a time when naming conventions were refreshingly honest and graphi...

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to sit in a metal tube underwater while depth charges rain from above, Das Boot: German U-Boat Simulation has you covered. Releas...

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...

Total Annihilation is a landmark real-time strategy game that takes large-scale warfare and refuses to keep it small. Players gather resources, construct factories, build armies, a...

Few titles make a promise quite like Gamma Force in Pit of a Thousand Screams. You already know this won’t be a relaxing stroll through a meadow. Instead, it’s an energ...

Shannara (1995, DOS) adapts the beloved fantasy world into a point-and-click adventure steeped in prophecy, magic, and earnest heroism. Drawing from the novels by Terry Brooks, it ...

Creatures Village trades explosions for adorable AI pets in a colorful sandbox world. You raise, teach, and care for Norns—genetically simulated cuties with personalities as ...

The Gene Machine is a quirky point-and-click adventure with a colorful comic-book style, a bizarre cast, and a story that happily wanders into territory where ordinary logic should...

Tracon for Windows brings the air traffic control simulation into the Windows environment, preserving the central challenge of coordinating aircraft while presenting the experience...

Blasteroids is a video game developed and released by Atari, Inc. in 1987. It's a sequel to the classic arcade game Asteroids, which was released in 1979. In Blasteroids, players c...

NetHack: Falcon's Eye is a 2001 graphical adaptation of the legendary roguelike NetHack, giving the famously complex dungeon adventure a more visual presentation while preserving m...

Emperor of the Fading Suns is a grand strategy game that looks at you and assumes you’ve cleared your schedule. Politics, religion, warfare, economics—it’s all he...

X-Men 2: The Fall of the Mutants is a curious blend of action and light strategy, where Marvel’s famous mutants get to stretch their powers across a series of loosely connected m...

In Blackstar: Agent of Justice (1995), you play a noir-style detective in a trench coat so dramatic it probably has its own union. Set in a dark, crime-ridden city where everyone t...

Afterlife is a simulation strategy game developed and published by LucasArts. It was released in 1996 for Microsoft Windows and later made available on other platforms. The game wa...

Grand Prix Circuit is a fascinating early attempt at turning real-world racing into something playable without requiring a steering wheel the size of your desk. In Grand Prix Circu...

There’s something oddly admirable about a game that hands you a polyester-clad disaster like Larry and says, “Go on, make him succeed.” Leisure Suit Larry 1: In t...

For those who think snooker is too posh and billiards too French, there's Archer Maclean's Pool, the most ‘90s way to simulate the timeless art of arguing over whether that s...

Whale's Voyage is a quirky science-fiction adventure that combines exploration, trading, combat, and a surprisingly large amount of freedom. Despite the title, you are not spending...

Laxius Power is a traditional Japanese-style role-playing game with a generous helping of exploration, battles, character development, and fantasy melodrama. Its story follows youn...

Viz is a cheeky little game based on the famously irreverent British comic magazine, and it has absolutely no intention of behaving like a respectable educational title. Released i...

Independence War takes space combat seriously, almost stubbornly so. Instead of arcade-style dogfights, it presents a Newtonian flight model where momentum, inertia, and positionin...

Transylvania is an atmospheric text adventure that sends the player into a classic gothic setting filled with mystery, danger, and the sort of suspicious castle that sensible peopl...

Metropolis offers a fascinating early vision of urban management, challenging players to build and develop a functioning city while balancing infrastructure, resources, and the nee...

Might and Magic 3: Isles of Terra is where the series starts to feel confident, like a dungeon master who has finally figured out how cruel they can be before players revolt. The l...

Released in 1987, Lords of Conquest is strategy in its most distilled, no-nonsense form. This is a game that drops you onto a map, hands you control of armies, and essentially says...

In The Hunt is a side-scrolling shooter that looks like Metal Slug took a deep breath and dove underwater. Released in arcades first and later ported to PC, it’s all about pi...