abandonware games sorted by popularity

Arctic Adventure is the sequel nobody asked for to Pharaoh's Tomb, except this time you’re freezing your butt off. As Nevada Smith (not a typo, it’s his real name), you...

Meantime is one of those fascinating lost adventures that has become more interesting precisely because players never got the chance to experience the finished game. Designed by th...

If System Shock was a warning, System Shock 2 is the full-blown nightmare that follows. This time, the horror seeps into every corner of the experience, blending RPG mechanics with...

Flying at incredible speed sounds glamorous until you realize mountains have absolutely no intention of moving out of the way. Mach 3 delivers fast-paced action by placing players ...

Highway Fighter delivers straightforward action with a focus on reflexes and timing. It throws obstacles your way with enthusiasm, expecting you to adapt quickly or face the conseq...

Crazy Nick’s Roger Wilco’s Spaced Out Games Pack hands the Space Quest janitor a stack of silly mini-games to keep him from accidentally saving the galaxy again. Expect...

If gravity had a sense of humor, it would look like Bounce Zone. This 1990 DOS oddball is part platformer, part physics experiment, and part unintentional comedy. You bounce. A lot...

International Soccer from 1994 delivers football in its most straightforward digital form: pass, shoot, and wonder why your defenders are wandering elsewhere. It captures the excit...

King's Quest 7: The Princeless Bride is one of the most colorful and playful entries in Sierra's long-running adventure series. The game follows Princess Rosella and her mother, Qu...

The Temple of Elemental Evil is a remarkably faithful computer adaptation of classic Dungeons & Dragons, based on the famous Greyhawk adventure. It offers turn-based combat, charac...

In Knight Games (1988, DOS), the Middle Ages meet joystick warfare. Think of it as a digital renaissance fair with fewer turkey legs and more sword clashing. You can joust, fence, ...

Fans of Dragonlance novels rejoiced at Dark Queen of Krynn, a Gold Box RPG where you battle alongside iconic heroes in a desperate fight against Takhisis, the dark goddess herself....

This isn’t Disney’s musical fairytale—it’s a DOS game, which means Beauty and the Beast is way more "puzzle platformer" than "tale as old as time." You play...

In Crime and Punishment, you’re not the criminal—you’re the detective, judge, and executioner rolled into one. Presented as a legal simulation, it tasks you with ...

Galactix continues the grand space-shooter tradition with enthusiasm and a healthy disregard for your survival odds. You control a small but determined ship facing waves of enemy f...

Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 throws you into a gloriously over-the-top sci-fi world where guns, swords, aliens and scantily clad warriors somehow make perfect sense. You play as Julie, ...

Pacific Islands is a 1992 military strategy game that continues the campaign begun in Battle Isle, transporting players to a chain of tropical battlefields where beautiful scenery ...

Super 3-D Noah's Ark is an unusual first-person shooter that takes the familiar Wolfenstein-style formula and gives it an extremely unexpected biblical makeover. Instead of battlin...

Welltris takes the familiar falling-block formula and turns it sideways, quite literally. Released in 1989, this Tetris-inspired puzzle game presents a three-dimensional well into ...

Socrates is a 1993 DOS strategy game that takes its name from the famous Greek philosopher, although players will be spending considerably more time thinking about winning than con...

By 1994, LineWars 2 expanded upon the original with enhanced visuals, refined mechanics, and more varied tactical possibilities. Battles require players to adapt quickly while mana...

Released in 1990, Logo introduces players to programming concepts through the famous turtle graphics system, transforming coding into an approachable creative activity. Rather than...

Stormlord is a colorful fantasy platform adventure in which the title character has the rather unpleasant job of rescuing magical creatures and confronting an assortment of hostile...

MicroLeague Baseball brings the strategic side of baseball to the computer, allowing players to manage teams, select lineups, and make tactical decisions throughout a game. Rather ...

Visual Basic 3 (VB3) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) released by Microsoft in 1993. It is part of the Visual Basic (VB) series, which is know...

Before Doom became the 3D gore-fest we all know, there was Return to Doom—and no, it has nothing to do with space marines. This 1988 title is more Choose Your Own Adventure t...

Normality is a first-person adventure video game developed by Gremlin Interactive and released in 1996. The game is set in a dystopian future where a totalitarian regime known as t...

The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time is a science-fiction adventure built around time travel, investigation, and the slightly alarming realization that history can be ruined by...

Fleet Command invites you to command modern naval forces with the calm authority of someone who definitely read the manual. This is strategy on a grand scale: radar screens glowing...

Take Eddie Murphy’s swagger, remove the charm, add some DOS chiptunes, and you get Beverly Hills Cop—a game adaptation that asks: “What if being a wisecracking de...