abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 2001, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is the black sheep of the family, proudly marching to a different beat. Shifting focus from deep role-playing to squad-based...

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...

A text adventure with just enough graphics to remind you what year it is, The Pawn (1986, DOS) wraps you in a fantasy world where the puzzles are clever and the parser occasionally...

Microsoft Space Simulator is a space flight simulator game developed by Bruce Artwick Organization and published by Microsoft in 1994. It is part of the broader range of simulation...

Welcome to Aspetra, a 1996 DOS game that tried to cram an epic sci-fi RPG into your beige box PC — and mostly succeeded! Think “Star Trek meets budget constraints.&rdqu...

Welcome to the skies of World War II, where dogfights are fast, fuel is low, and you probably forgot to raise your landing gear. Battlehawks 1942 (1988) is a flight sim with just e...

Released in 1990, Joe Montana Football attempts to capture the excitement of American football while making the sport accessible to computer players. Featuring the legendary quarte...

Ishido (1990, DOS/Mac) is the digital version of sitting in a Zen garden and realizing you’re terrible at strategy. The game’s premise is simple: place stones on a grid...

By 1999, Liero had become a cult favorite thanks to its frantic real-time battles between heavily armed worms. Unlike turn-based competitors, the action never pauses, creating chao...

In Dragon’s Lair 2: Time Warp (1990), Dirk doesn’t just fight dragons—he bungles his way through time itself. Want to rescue your wife Daphne? Prepare to stumble ...

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 ...

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...

Mech War (1992) takes the concept of giant robot combat and turns it into a fast-paced tactical showdown. Instead of commanding from afar, you’re directly involved in the act...

Silicon Dreams by Level 9 Computing is a trilogy of interactive fiction (text adventure) games released in the mid-1980s. The trilogy includes three separate games: Snowball, Retur...

UMS 2: Nations at War is a serious military strategy game that takes itself very seriously indeed. It simulates modern warfare with an emphasis on realism, logistics, and command s...

Released in 1989 for DOS, Baal is what happens when demons invade and the only thing standing between Earth and eternal damnation is a guy with a really big gun and absolutely no c...

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...

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...