abandonware games sorted by popularity

Battlespire is the weird, dark cousin of the Elder Scrolls family - the one who shows up late to the reunion with a sword and no pants. This first-person RPG strips out all the com...

Shadowlands (1992, DOS) hands you a party of adventurers and then expects you to coordinate them like a fantasy air-traffic controller. Instead of a single hero, you manage four ch...

Dark, brooding, and a little too serious for its own good, Targhan throws you into a side-scrolling world of swords, sorcery, and moody backgrounds. You play as a loincloth-clad wa...

In Avalon (1998, DOS), you are a wizard, possibly a hero, definitely confused. This fantasy RPG drops you into a world of magic, mayhem, and menu navigation straight out of a Tolki...

Arnhem is the kind of wargame where you spend more time reading hex maps than shooting anything. It’s all about recreating Operation Market Garden — you know, that WWII...

Don’t let the elemental title fool you—Fire and Ice is less about epic fantasy and more about precise platforming wrapped in charming visuals. It’s colorful and d...

If Catacomb Abyss was “Doom for wizards,” then Catacomb Armageddon is “Doom with a Halloween costume budget.” Bigger levels, more enemies, and slightly more...

Into the Eagle's Nest from 1987 is a top-down action game where stealth and gunfire coexist in uneasy partnership. Players infiltrate enemy territory, rescue prisoners, and survive...

In Air Force Commander (1992), you don’t just fly planes - you run the whole air force. Think of it as being a general with a spreadsheet addiction. Assign squadrons, manage ...

In Taipan for Windows, you’re not a hero, you’re a 19th-century capitalist trying to get rich trading tea, silk, and the occasional bit of opium in the South China Sea....

If Shakespeare wrote video games and then decided, “You know what this needs? A parser and some pixelated drama,” you'd get Avon. In this interactive fiction gem from 1...

The Curse of Monkey Island is the third installment in the iconic Monkey Island point-and-click adventure series developed by LucasArts. Released in 1997, it introduced a new visua...

ELIZA, created in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, was one of the first computer programs to simulate human conversation. Designed as a natural language processing demons...

Icewind Dale arrived in 2000 as a frosty sibling to the Baldur's Gate formula, trading political intrigue for glorious dungeon crawling in the forgotten corners of the Forgotten Re...

Dominus (1994) is what happens when a tower defense game and an RPG get thrown into a medieval blender. You’re tasked with defending your castle from wave after wave of enemi...

IVAN (Iter Vehemens ad Necem) is one of the strangest and deepest roguelikes ever created. Released in 2001, it combines brutal difficulty with extraordinary detail, from limb dama...

Dark, moody, and surprisingly creepy, Zork Nemesis is what happens when the whimsical world of Zork goes goth. The text adventures are gone—now it’s full-motion video, ...

Released in 1988, Journey to the Center of the Earth draws inspiration from Jules Verne's famous novel and invites players into a subterranean world filled with mysteries and dange...

Hillsfar blends role-playing elements with a variety of mini-games, creating an experience that feels both diverse and occasionally unpredictable. One moment you are navigating a c...

Based on the fantasy novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Death Gate (1994) throws you into an epic, puzzle-heavy adventure. Imagine Myst, but with more dragons and a script ...

Crisis in the Kremlin lets you step into the shoes of a Soviet leader during the late 1980s, facing the impossible task of guiding the USSR through economic collapse, political unr...

Doofus (1994) is what happens when platformers go slightly off the rails. You guide a floppy-haired kid through surreal, cartoony landscapes filled with hazards that feel more anno...