abandonware games sorted by popularity

Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero is a charming blend of role-playing and adventure that gently nudges you into a world where saving the day involves as much thinking as it do...

If you ever wanted to play a point-and-click adventure where the protagonists have the combined IQ of a slice of cheese, Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity is your masterpie...

Released in 1989, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade takes the film's adventure and translates it into a point-and-click experience with surprising elegance. It captures the charm,...

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet software for personal computers, and it played a pivotal role in the early history of personal computing. It was developed by Dan Bricklin and Bo...

Deluxe Paint, often abbreviated as DPaint, was a popular bitmap graphics editor and animation software package. It was developed by Electronic Arts (EA) and released in the mid-198...

Loom is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games (now LucasArts). It was designed by Brian Moriarty and is known for its unique gameplay mechanics and em...

Softporn Adventure is a 1981 text adventure that occupies a peculiar place in computer-game history. Created during the early era of interactive fiction, it uses written descriptio...

It Came from the Desert is a cinematic masterpiece of giant ants, paranoia, and 1950s sci-fi homage. Released in 1990 for DOS, it blends action, strategy, and storytelling into a u...

Ah, Dungeon Keeper, where you’re not the hero—you’re the evil overlord. And it feels so good. Released in 1997, this Bullfrog classic flipped the script on fantas...

Castle of the Winds is a fantasy roguelike role-playing game developed by SaadaSoft in the early 1990s. It was designed for Windows 3.x and is notable for being one of the earliest...

Radical! Gnarly! And other 80s slang words! California Games is what happens when sports simulations meet neon-colored vibes and a love of spandex. You’ll hacky sack, BMX rac...

StarCraft is Blizzard's landmark 1998 real-time strategy game, bringing three radically different factions into a fast, competitive struggle for control of the Koprulu Sector. The ...

Elite isn’t just a game; it’s a lifestyle choice. This 1987 DOS version throws you into a vast, uncaring galaxy and says, “Good luck.” There’s trading...

Rick Dangerous is a 1989 platform adventure starring an explorer who seems to have taken Indiana Jones' job description and removed the health-and-safety section. Players guide Ric...

The Duel: Test Drive 2 turns the fantasy of high-speed driving into a straight-faced competition between exotic cars, winding roads, and an alarming number of opportunities to disc...

Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light ver...

Before space marines were gritty and everything exploded in brown and grey, there was The Adventures of Captain Comic. This is early PC platforming in all its clunky, jumpy, 4-colo...

Originally released in 1983, Lode Runner became one of the defining puzzle-platform games thanks to its brilliant combination of action and strategy. Players collect treasure while...

Season of the Sakura (1997) is what happens when a high school dating sim meets anime melodrama. You play a student navigating the treacherous waters of friendship, love, and quest...

Star Wars: Yoda Stories is a 1997 top-down adventure game that sends Luke Skywalker on a series of compact missions under the guidance of Yoda. Instead of following one enormous li...

Home Alone attempts to capture the chaotic charm of the film, placing you in the shoes of a child defending a house with questionable safety standards. Released in 1991, it mixes s...

Microsoft FreeCell takes the deceptively simple card game and turns it into one of the most enduring forms of digital procrastination ever invented. The rules are easy to understan...

Ecstatica is a haunting anomaly in the DOS library, blending early 3D visuals with a dark fairy-tale atmosphere. Its polygonal characters may look crude by modern standards, but th...

Planetfall is a 1983 interactive fiction adventure created by Infocom that combines science fiction, humor, and clever writing into a memorable journey. Players explore an abandone...

Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon, also released in 1991, takes everything that worked in the original and expands it thoughtfully. The dungeon design is more varied, ...

Premier Manager was released in 1992 by Gremlin Interactive for the Commodore Amiga and MS-DOS platforms. It was one of the earliest football management simulation games and allowe...

Populous is a 1989 strategy game that allows players to become a god and shape the world according to their plans. Instead of controlling individual armies, players influence civil...

Welcome to Alter Ego: Male Version, where your life begins with a cry and a diaper and only goes downhill - or uphill, depending on your choices. This text-based simulation lets yo...

Released in 1988, BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception is part RPG, part strategy, part “did I just die in the tutorial again?” You’re a young MechWarrior on...