abandonware games sorted by popularity

Total Knockout: Championship Female Boxing brings female boxing to the computer in a straightforward sports game focused on matches, fighters, and the eternal question of whether y...

In Space Quest 5: The Next Mutation, Roger Wilco finally receives something resembling a promotion. Released in 1993, the game puts him in charge of a spaceship and a crew, which f...

Shanghai is a digital adaptation of the classic mahjong solitaire format, transforming a traditional tile-matching puzzle into a remarkably addictive computer pastime. The objectiv...

Wolfenstein 3D: Mortal Kombat Edition combines the fast-paced first-person shooting of Wolfenstein 3D with the characters and imagery associated with Mortal Kombat, creating exactl...

Fast Food Dizzy, released in 1989 for DOS, is exactly as chaotic as the title suggests. Starring the famously round egg hero, the game drops Dizzy into a world where food falls fro...

Freddy Hardest introduces a hero whose name suggests subtlety was never on the table. This action-platformer throws you into alien-infested territory armed with a blaster and a stu...

Sports games from the late 1980s often relied on imagination as much as graphics, and Magic Johnson's Basketball is no exception. Featuring the NBA legend himself, it delivers fast...

Holiday World Tycoon is the sort of game that feels like it was designed after someone spent a bit too long staring at a postcard rack in an airport gift shop and thought, &ld...

Space Quest: The Lost Chapter is a curious artifact released in 2001 by dedicated fans who decided Roger Wilco deserved one more misadventure. Essentially a remake and expansion of...

StarBlade is a 1990 DOS space shooter built around fast action, enemy waves, and the familiar challenge of keeping a small spacecraft alive against a very large number of things tr...

Before he became better known as Alien Carnage, Halloween Harry blasted onto DOS PCs in 1993 with fast action, crude humor, and zero interest in subtlety. You play Harry, armed to ...

Kingdoms of Germany places players in charge of managing territories within medieval Germany, blending historical strategy with political decision-making and military planning. Suc...

If Baldur’s Gate was a sprawling epic, Shadows of Amn is the Shakespearean sequel with better everything: graphics, writing, drama. Your soul is stolen (again), your allies a...

Few games deserve the title of “classic” more than Day of the Tentacle (1993). It’s Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman at their weirdest, giving us time travel, mutant...

Uncover It is a puzzle game from 1994 that thrives on curiosity and a bit of patience. The premise is simple: reveal hidden images piece by piece, but the execution keeps you engag...

Think running an airline is easy? Airlines (1994) says “think again.” This old-school management sim hands you a failing fleet and a world map, then laughs quietly as y...

Released in 1990, Lightspeed blends space simulation, exploration, and strategic resource management into an ambitious science fiction adventure. Players travel across distant star...

Pinball World is a 1995 pinball collection that offers players a variety of themed tables, each with different layouts, challenges, and visual styles. Instead of focusing on a sing...

World Tour Tennis turns tennis into a compact computer contest where positioning and timing matter more than having the reflexes of a professional athlete. Players move around the ...

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...

Thief: The Dark Project helped redefine the stealth genre by making shadows, sound and patience more important than raw firepower. You play Garrett, a professional thief who would ...

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...

Battle Arena Toshinden was the first game in the Toshinden series and was originally released for the Sony PlayStation in 1995 and later for DOS. Battle Arena Toshinden introd...

There’s something charmingly ruthless about TV Mogul, a game that hands you a television network and basically says, “Don’t mess it up.” Released in 1988, it throws you int...

Pyjamarama is an abandoned action adventure game released in 2004 for Windows; it's a remake of the original Pyjamarama. The original is a classic video game developed by Mikr...

By the time Premier Manager 3 rolled around, the series had cemented its reputation as the thinking fan’s football fix. Released in 1994, it refined the formula once again, o...

Fantastic Dizzy, released in 1994, stars a cheerful egg with an unfortunate talent for getting into trouble. This platform-adventure hybrid mixes exploration, puzzle-solving, and l...

Paintshow is a DOS graphics program from an era when creating pictures on a computer still felt like a minor act of wizardry. It provides tools for drawing, editing, and manipulati...

18th Airborne is what happens when a military recruitment pamphlet and a tactical shooter have a baby. You’re thrown into the boots of a paratrooper with a mission, a gun, an...

Sleeping Gods Lie is a 1991 DOS adventure with a dark science-fiction atmosphere and a strong emphasis on exploration, puzzles, and discovery. Players investigate an unfamiliar env...