abandonware games sorted by popularity

Quest for Glory 1: So You Want to Be a Hero is a 1989 adventure RPG that asks a deceptively simple question: what happens when an inexperienced adventurer decides to become a hero?...

Shadow Warrior is a 1997 first-person shooter starring Lo Wang, a wisecracking ninja who approaches corporate warfare with a sword, an arsenal of firearms, and a remarkable lack of...

Escape from Delirium feels like someone took a pulp adventure novel, dipped it in a bucket of chaos, and fed it to a DOS system. You wake up with amnesia (because of course you do)...

With Icewind Dale II in 2002, the frozen north got even busier. This sequel sharpened the mechanics with Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition rules, giving players more flexibility and f...

Questprobe featuring Human Torch and The Thing is a 1985 adventure game that brings two very different Marvel heroes together for a challenge involving exploration, puzzles, and su...

Dungeons & Dragons meets Disney on a sugar rush. Tangled Tales is a bright, humorous RPG that cheerfully pokes fun at fantasy clichés while still serving a solid adventu...

In ACE 2 (1987, DOS), you and a buddy can engage in split-screen dogfights so slow they make real air combat look like fast-forwarded ballet. The graphics are simple, but the charm...

The Fourth Protocol is a 1985 interactive fiction video game inspired by Frederick Forsyth's 1984 Cold War spy novel of the same name. Developed by the Electronic Pencil Company an...

Evets is a puzzle game that proves simplicity can be deceptive. With minimal graphics and a straightforward premise, it invites you in gently before revealing its true complexity. ...

Pole Position II is a 1988 DOS racing game based on the classic arcade formula, bringing high-speed Formula One action to home computers. Players race around tracks while managing ...

MicroMan is a wonderfully strange platform adventure that shrinks its hero down to microscopic proportions and sends him into a world where ordinary objects become enormous obstacl...

By the time Lords of Midnight: The Citadel arrived in 1995, it carried the weight of a classic on its shoulders. Rather than reinventing the original, it refines and reinterprets i...

Murders in Venice sends players into the atmospheric world of Venetian mystery, where beautiful surroundings conceal a dangerous investigation. Players explore locations, question ...

Pit Fighter is a 1991 fighting game that brings brutal underground combat to the computer with a gritty atmosphere and intense one-on-one battles. Players choose fighters with diff...

Zangband is a variant of the popular roguelike game Angband. Zangband, short for Zelazny Angband, was developed by Chris Weisiger and first released in 1994. The game features...

If you ever looked at regular Tetris and thought, “What this really needs is eye-melting colors and a possible migraine,” then Acid Tetris (1998, DOS) is your jam. It&r...

Great Naval Battles vol. 2: Guadalcanal 1942-43 puts you in charge of naval warfare where every decision feels heavy and every mistake echoes across the ocean. In Great Naval Battl...

In Assault Trooper, you're the lone soldier with enough ammo to make Rambo blush, dropped behind enemy lines to shoot first and ask “was that a civilian?” later. This 1...

A gentle adventure inspired by the animated film, Once Upon a Forest (1995, DOS) delivers an eco-friendly story wrapped in side-scrolling gameplay. You guide three tiny forest crea...

Before apps, spreadsheets, and AI Dungeon Masters, there was Dungeon Master’s Assistant Vol. 1. Released in 1988, this tool was a digital sidekick for pen-and-paper D&D p...

Welcome to a future where zooming through tunnels and dodging neon obstacles is considered heroic. Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom is a proto-3D arcade shooter that tries its best to i...

Forgotten Worlds is what happens when gravity politely excuses itself and lets you spin in circles while shooting absolutely everything. Originally an arcade spectacle, this DOS ve...

In Altered Destiny, a perfectly average guy named P.J. Barrett gets sucked into a bizarre alien dimension because he answered a phone call. Seriously. What follows is a classic poi...