abandonware games sorted by popularity

You thought running a government was hard? Try doing it with a smug civil servant and a budget crisis every five minutes. In Yes, Prime Minister, you play as Jim Hacker, the PM him...

Joe Blade 2 continues the adventures of its unlikely action hero, once again placing him in situations where common sense would probably recommend staying at home. The sequel expan...

Battlecruiser 3000AD (1996) is less a game and more a test of faith. Ambitious beyond reason, it promised total control of a massive starship—crew management, planetary landi...

Jump 'n Bump proves that rabbits can be surprisingly competitive. Released in 1998, this multiplayer-focused platform game pits adorable bunnies against one another in frantic matc...

ResidualVM is an open-source game engine project created to run certain classic adventure games on modern computers by replacing their original executable code with a compatible en...

With a title like Pray for Death, you know you’re not signing up for a cheerful platformer. This is a fighting game with a gothic, heavy-metal aesthetic that screams 1996. It...

X-COM: Alliance is one of those legendary “what could have been” titles, a fascinating ghost in gaming history rather than a fully realized experience. Originally envisioned as...

Ultimate Body Blows is a fighting game that boldly enters a genre dominated by arcade giants and says, “We can do this on a PC keyboard.” Inspired heavily by Street Fig...

Pharoah's Curse is a 1998 Windows 3.x adventure game that embraces the mystery and atmosphere of ancient Egypt. Players explore environments filled with secrets, puzzles, and super...

Loopz, released in 1990, is the kind of puzzle game that looks innocent for about five seconds before it starts humbling you. The concept is simple: connect the pieces, form loops,...

Quarantine 2: Road Warrior continues the series’ tradition of turning driving into a hazardous military operation. Released in 1995, it puts players behind the wheel of an armed ...

Tapper is what happens when someone gamifies bartending and gives you the reflexes of a caffeinated octopus. You’re a mustachioed bartender juggling multiple counters, pourin...

SRAM is a 1987 adventure game with a distinctly science-fiction flavor, placing the player in an unusual world where exploration, problem solving, and interaction are more importan...

The Faery Tale Adventure: Book I is a charming action-adventure set in a colorful fantasy world where exploration matters just as much as fighting. You play a young hero sent on a ...

Blitz Runner is a fast-moving action game built around speed, reflexes and the increasingly difficult task of staying alive while everything around you seems determined to get in t...

Released during the holiday season of 1993, _Jetpack: Christmas Special_ wraps the classic gameplay of Jetpack in festive decorations and seasonal cheer. Beneath the snow-covered v...

Despite the baffling title (Book I – Chapter 2, yes, really), this is a charmingly earnest old-school RPG. Think “Ultima clone with extra oatmeal” and you're clos...

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...

SeXXcapades is an adult-oriented collection of games built around the playful, provocative style common to many early PC titles aimed at a mature audience. Rather than offering a c...

Video Casino is a straightforward casino simulation that brings several familiar gambling games to the computer screen. The idea is wonderfully simple: choose your game, place your...

Apollo 18: Mission to the Moon (1987) lets you relive the lunar missions in all their... spreadsheet-like glory. This game is as educational as it is punishing; you’ll learn ...

Bigger, deeper, and just as punishing, Gengis Khan 2: Clan of the Gray Wolf (1992) expands the formula with more maps, more rulers, and more ways to fail spectacularly. Want to uni...

History lessons become unexpectedly adventurous in Mario's Time Machine, where Bowser has stolen priceless historical artifacts and scattered them across different eras. Players tr...

Dark, moody, and surprisingly mature, Manhattan Missions takes the Turtles into gritty territory. The city is under siege, Shredder’s back, and the atmosphere feels more Batm...

The Curse of Monkey Island is one of the great comic adventure games of the late 1990s, combining pirates, absurd puzzles, memorable characters, and enough terrible puns to sink a ...

People's General is a 1998 turn-based strategy game that takes the classic military formula and explores a fictional future conflict. Instead of recreating historical battles, it i...

Knights of Legend is a tactical role-playing game (RPG) released by Origin Systems in 1989 for MS-DOS, the Apple II, and the Commodore 64. Known for its complex gameplay and strate...

NetHack: Falcon's Eye is a 2001 graphical adaptation of the legendary roguelike NetHack, giving the famously complex dungeon adventure a more visual presentation while preserving m...

Premier Manager 2 polished the formula, giving football nerds even more stats to obsess over. If you thought juggling line-ups and balancing books was fun in the first game, this s...

Xiphos is a space shooter that mixes straightforward mechanics with a slightly more tactical approach, encouraging players to think as well as react. It is not overly complex, but ...