abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1998 for Windows XP-era PCs, Fatal Relations is an interactive drama that leans heavily into adult themes, intrigue, and morally questionable choices. More visual novel...

Holiday Island is essentially a theme park management game that invites you to unleash your inner entrepreneur—or your inner chaos agent. Released in 1996, it lets you build, man...

In Space Quest 1: The Sarien Encounter, the galaxy’s least qualified hero, Roger Wilco, begins his long tradition of surviving disasters mostly by accident. Released in 1986,...

Lemonade Tycoon is a business simulation game that allows players to run their own virtual lemonade stand and try to turn it into a successful and profitable business. The game typ...

Lure of the Temptress (1992, DOS) is dark fantasy done right — with muddy streets, suspicious peasants, and a villainess who’s equal parts charm and cruelty. As Diermot...

If Doom was the apocalypse, Doom II: Hell on Earth was the encore nobody asked for but everyone wanted. Released in 1994, it doubled down on everything: bigger maps, nastier monste...

Rodent's Revenge is a puzzle video game originally released in 1991 as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows. Developed by Christopher Lee Fraley, the game is simple...

Uncharted Waters 2: New Horizons takes everything its predecessor attempted and refines it into something richer and more engaging. Released in 1995, it expands the scope with mult...

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...

SimAnt is a life simulation and strategy game developed by Maxis, released in 1991, and part of the "Sim" series. Created by Will Wright, SimAnt focuses on simulating the life of a...

Mario Bros VGA is a fan made remake of the original Mario Bros by Nintendo, the game that popularized the character of Mario, the Italian plumber that first appeared in Donkey Kong...

Pipe Mania (also known as Pipe Dream is a tile-matching (sort of) puzzle game about flowing liquids developed by The Assembly Line in 1989. You must build a path made of pipe piece...

Chessmaster 9000 is a chess game developed by Ubisoft and released in 2002. It's part of the Chessmaster series, which has been around since the 1980s. Chessmaster 9000 was known f...

Jones in the Fast Lane is the kind of game that you don't see often these days. It's a mix between a digital board game and a modern day life simulation. The goal of the game is to...

SkyGlobe is an astronomy software that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was a DOS-based planetarium program that allowed users to explore the night sky in real-tim...

Star Trek: Birth of the Federation is a turn-based strategy video game set in the Star Trek universe. The game was developed by MicroProse Software and published by Infogrames for ...

Gunship 2000 takes the foundation of its predecessor and adds polish, options, and a broader strategic scope. You’re not just flying missions; you’re shaping campaigns,...

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where leather vests are apparently immune to radiation, Bad Blood lets you wander the wasteland deciding whether to be a brute, a brainiac, or a mut...

The Blues Brothers is a platformer that follows the adventures of Jake and Elwood Blues as they try to put their band back together. The player controls one of the Blues Brothers t...

4Play was a risqué trivia and multi-player board-style game released in the mid-1990s. Designed as a party game, it combined trivia questions, mini-games, and challenge...

The Neuromancer video game, released in 1988 by Interplay Productions, is an adventure/role-playing game loosely based on William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer (1984...

Transport Tycoon Deluxe is a business simulation game where players take control of a transport company, competing against rivals. Players can build stations, airports, and railroa...

Super Solvers: Gizmos & Gadgets is what happens when someone decides that learning physics and mechanics should feel like a cartoon treasure hunt inside an abandoned warehouse....

Released in 1991, Eye of the Beholder brought classic dungeon crawling into the digital age with style and confidence. Set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, it delivers grid-...

Before Doom and Wolfenstein 3D turned PC gaming into a pixelated bloodbath, there was Castle Wolfenstein. A stealth game in 1984? Believe it. You sneak around a Nazi fortress, stea...

The Wizard's Castle is a classic text-based, dungeon-crawling adventure game released in 1980, designed by Joseph R. Power. The game was originally developed for the Exidy Sorcerer...

Wolfenstein 3D is the first-person shooter that popularized the whole genre in the early 90s and is considered one of the greatest games ever made. Wolfenstein 3D was designed by J...