abandonware games sorted by popularity

Nobunaga's Ambition 6 continues the long-running historical strategy series with an even broader and more sophisticated take on Japan’s Sengoku era. Released in 1994, it places p...

Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans is one of gaming’s most famous “what could have been” stories. Designed as a point-and-click adventure set in the Warcraft ...

Before Diablo made clicking on dungeons cool, DarkSpyre was already throwing players into labyrinths filled with monsters and puzzles. Released in 1990, it combines hack-and-slash ...

Douglas Adams, the twisted genius behind Hitchhiker’s Guide, brings you the most terrifying adventure of all: paperwork. Bureaucracy turns mundane modern life into a text-bas...

By the time Goblins 3 rolls around, the formula gets a shake-up, introducing a single controllable character who can summon others as needed. It’s a clever twist, though it t...

Unnecessary Roughness takes American football and gives it a slightly rougher, more arcade-like edge. Released in 1993, it doesn’t aim for pure simulation, instead focusing on fa...

Arx Fatalis is basically what happens when someone takes “dungeons and dragons” way too literally. You start trapped in a gloomy underground world because—oops&md...

By 1994, point-and-click adventures were everywhere, but Dragonsphere carved out its niche with lush graphics, an intriguing plot, and plenty of puzzles. You play a young king task...

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...

If Saturday-morning cartoons and B-movies fused into a pixelated arcade blast, you’d get Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters. This action shooter throws you onto a d...

Tunnels of Armageddon is a strategy and action game set in a bleak post-apocalyptic environment where survival depends on navigating dangerous underground passages and dealing with...

Ultimate Domain blends real-time strategy with space opera flair, inviting players to conquer the galaxy one cautious decision at a time. You manage fleets, resources, and diplomac...

In the Dead of Night is one of those mid-90s DOS oddities that feels like it crawled straight out of a programmer’s personal nightmares. Part adventure, part horror, and part...

With Gnome Ranger 2: Ingrid’s Back, things get a bit more polished, though not necessarily more sane. The puzzles return, along with the dreamlike environments and that pecul...

Styx is a compact arcade-style adventure built around exploration, hazards, and the sort of unforgiving design that older computer games considered perfectly normal. The action tak...

Plundered Hearts is a 1987 interactive fiction adventure from Infocom that combines romance, pirates, and high-seas drama into a charming text-based story. Players take the role of...

Think of Aldo's Assault as what happens when Mario forgets his plumber license and joins a bootleg army. This 1991 DOS gem throws you into a side-scrolling frenzy of ladders, barre...

Rules of Engagement is a 1991 DOS space strategy and combat simulation that puts players in command of a fleet operating in a dangerous futuristic conflict. Instead of simply jumpi...

Rescue Rover 2 expands on the puzzle-focused gameplay of its predecessor with new environments, challenges, and hazards for the small robotic hero to overcome. Released in 1991, it...

Rings of Zilfin is a 1987 fantasy role-playing game that offers players a broad world to explore, filled with towns, wilderness, enemies, and mysterious locations. The game combine...

In Cutthroats, you’re a diver hired for a treasure-hunting expedition that’s about to go very wrong. This text adventure from Infocom mixes underwater exploration with ...

LHA is one of those utilities that may look humble until you remember how important file compression was in the DOS era. The program is an archiver designed to compress files and b...

Rules of Engagement 2 builds on its predecessor's space-command formula with a larger and more sophisticated strategic experience. Players manage fleets, plan operations, assign sh...

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...

Postal 2 takes the outrageous premise of its predecessor and expands it into a first-person sandbox where practically every ordinary errand can become an excuse for complete chaos....

War in Middle Earth brings Tolkien-inspired fantasy warfare to the computer, letting players influence the great struggle between the forces of good and evil. Released in 1989, the...

In Battle Master (1991), you play as a heavily armored murder-hobo leading an army across a fantasy world that really doesn’t want you there. It’s part action-RPG, part...

When Two Worlds War is a strategy game built around the uncomfortable proposition that diplomacy has failed and the only remaining argument involves fleets, armies, and industrial ...

There’s something oddly poetic about 8088 Othello, a 1985 take on the classic board game that feels like it was programmed by someone who had a personal vendetta against flas...

Aquanoid (1992) takes the classic Breakout formula and throws it underwater, because bricks are apparently much more intimidating when they're wet. You control a paddle, you bounce...