abandonware games sorted by popularity

Yacht Racing Simulator proves that even in the '80s, developers were brave enough to turn the thrilling world of rich people boating slowly into a video game. With graphics that co...

Five-a-side Indoor Soccer is what happens when football trades muddy boots for squeaky sneakers and decides walls are friends, not boundaries. Released in the mid-80s, it captures ...

Released in 1983, Moon Patrol is the game that proved moon driving is a terrible career choice. You control a buggy with a suspension system that would make NASA jealous, jumping o...

Inspector Gadget: Global Terror! takes everyone’s favorite bionic klutz and hands him a globe-trotting mission to stop M.A.D.—which is roughly as risky as giving a todd...

Acrobat Reader was the first of a family of application software developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Acrobat...

Back in 1985, Cavequest asked: what if you mixed ASCII graphics with deadly bats and claustrophobia? The answer: a punishingly hard maze crawler that’ll have you screaming at...

Celtic Tales (1995) throws you into the misty, myth-soaked hills of ancient Ireland, where diplomacy is just war with more steps. You’re a clan leader trying to outwit druids...

Noctropolis feels like stepping into a fever dream of a comic book you read when you were twelve and maybe shouldn’t have. A surreal noir adventure with gothic heroes, femme ...

Compilation titles often feel like a random pile of games tossed together with minimal ceremony, but Future Classics Collection from 1990 tries to do something slightly more ambiti...

If your idea of high-octane excitement involves wind direction, tacking angles, and sail trim, then American Challenge: A Sailing Simulation is your digital paradise. This 1986 DOS...

Evolution is an early experiment in simulating progress, and it wears its ambition proudly. The game attempts to model development and change over time, often in abstract ways that...

Flash Gordon: Il Rapimento di Dale throws you into a pulpy sci-fi serial where subtlety is left at the airlock. Based on the adventures of the square-jawed space hero, the game lea...

In 1990, strategy games were still figuring out how serious they wanted to be, and Frontline sits comfortably in that experimental phase. This DOS title drops players into a tactic...

Guerrilla War wastes no time pretending to be subtle. You run upward, you shoot everything that moves, and occasionally you rescue a hostage who seems oddly calm about the whole si...

The Patcher 6.1 (1993, DOS) is one of those utilities-turned-experiences that makes you feel like a digital surgeon. Instead of saving lives, you’re poking around system file...

Captain Dynamo is what happens when a circus acrobat chugs ten cans of cola and decides to take on gravity itself. You’re bouncing, flipping, and springing through traps and ...

Yes, this exists. Blues Brothers RPG (2004, Windows XP) is what happens when someone looks at a legendary blues duo and says, “What if they fought zombies with saxophones?&rd...

The Third Courier is an abandoned (atypical) adventure / role playing game set in Berlin during the cold war era and, of course, it's a spy game. The Third Courier was developed by...