abandonware games sorted by popularity

If you ever wanted to roleplay in a text adventure where a coconut is of utmost importance, Beyond Zork has your back. This is Infocom at its most delightfully weird: part RPG, par...

Board game night went digital in 1998 with Axis and Allies, a strategy title that lets you rewrite WWII—assuming you don’t forget where you left your infantry. Fans of ...

Don’t let the pixelated graphics and cheerful music fool you—Chip’s Challenge is a gauntlet of logical torment. You play as Chip, a nerdy teen who agrees to navig...

Part Cold War thriller, part adventure game, part submarine simulator, Code-Name: Iceman is a Sierra title that demands patience, precision, and a deep respect for diplomacy and to...

Elvira: The Arcade Game trades puzzles for action and subtlety for pure chaos. This is fast, brutal, side-scrolling combat with monsters pouring in from every direction. Elvira&rsq...

Life & Death is a medical simulation game developed by Software Toolworks and released in 1988 for MS-DOS computers. It aimed to provide players with a realistic simulation of ...

This 1989 game is based on the animated movie where dogs die, go to heaven, then come back for revenge (sort of). The DOS adaptation? Well, it’s more like All Pixels Go Nowhe...

The Amazing Spider-Man is a side-scrolling action game developed by Oxford Digital Enterprises and published by Paragon Software for MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST. The plot revolves ...

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...

Castlevania, originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, was developed and published by Konami. The game was known in Japan as Akumajo Dracula (Devil's Castl...

Before Ultima 1 came along, role-playing games on PC were about as sophisticated as a pocket calculator. Then Richard Garriott threw players into a digital world full of space trav...

Long before Minecraft let us build worlds, Adventure Construction Set handed you a digital Lego box and said, “Go nuts.” Want to make a dungeon full of orcs and ham san...

Knights of Xentar (1994, DOS) is what happens when anime meets adult humor and forgets to use its filter. This cheeky RPG follows a perverted hero on a quest filled with ridiculous...

Test of Time is what happens when Civilization II meets a Star Trek convention. This version takes the classic formula and adds space colonization, fantasy realms, and weird alien ...

Lincity-NG is an open-source city simulation game and a continuation of the original Lincity game. The "NG" stands for "New Generation." The game is designed to be a city-building ...

The Settlers (also known as Serf City: Life is Feudal) is the kind of game that turns you into a benevolent yet slightly obsessive medieval manager. You don’t just build...

By 1996, Sensible World of Soccer 96/97 had evolved into something much larger than a simple football game. Players could dive into leagues from around the globe, manage transfers,...

Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel is an adventure game released in 1987 by Sierra On-Line, designed by former police officer Jim Walls. It's the first installment in the ...

Released in 1989, Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs is pure old-school sports gaming: simple to learn, hard to master, and endlessly competitive. The presentation is minimal,...

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is a role-playing video game that was first released in 1981. It's one of the pioneering titles in the dungeon-crawling genre and one ...

Heroes of Might and Magic offers a strategic playground where armies march, heroes grow stronger, and time seems to disappear without warning. It has that classic “just one more ...

World Class Leader Board is a golf simulation game developed and published by Access Software and released in the late 1980s for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amig...

In Ultima 6, you finally meet the Gargoyles, who aren’t the snarling monsters everyone assumed—they’re just misunderstood neighbors with a different perspective. ...

Dive, dive! This 1989 DOS simulator puts you in control of a nuclear submarine, though most of the action involves pushing buttons and waiting very patiently. Think of it as the &l...

Metal & Lace: The Battle of the Robo Babes is a video game developed by Megatech Software and published by Forest Interactive in 1993. It's an adult-themed fighting game for MS...