abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

Released in 1989, Legacy of the Ancients combines traditional role-playing mechanics with exploration, quests, and a surprisingly imaginative fantasy setting. Players recruit compa...

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...

Never mind is a 1989 DOS game whose title sounds like the developers briefly remembered they had a deadline and decided to release the game anyway. Beneath the wonderfully casual n...

FlixMix feels like someone took a film editor’s desk, scattered it across a computer screen, and invited you to tidy up at speed. The premise is deceptively simple: assemble ...

Murders in Venice sends players into the atmospheric world of Venetian mystery, where beautiful surroundings conceal a dangerous investigation. Players explore locations, question ...

Bomb Run (1991, DOS) sounds like an action-packed thriller—and then you play it and realize you’re just trying to drop bombs in the right spots while flying what feels ...

Diabolika is a dark, atmospheric adventure with a taste for supernatural trouble and gloomy surroundings. The game places you in a world where strange events are normal and apparen...

Sink or Swim is basically what happens when someone asks, “What if we turned a rescue operation into a slapstick puzzle show?” You guide lifeboat-juggling hero S.S. Dav...

The Crack of Doom is an old-school adventure with a title that sounds considerably more dramatic than the average Tuesday afternoon, and the game does its best to live up to it. Ex...

Step aside, arcade action—B-24 Combat Simulator (1987) is here to test your patience, eyesight, and possibly your sanity. It’s all about realism, baby. You’ll tak...

Rescue at Rigel is a 1983 DOS science-fiction adventure from the early days of computer role-playing and interactive storytelling. Players are sent to a space station controlled by...

Planet's Edge is a 1991 science-fiction role-playing game that sends players across the galaxy on an epic mission involving exploration, diplomacy, and combat. Created by New World...

In the neon-lit corridors of cyberspace, you're a "decker," infiltrating corporate mainframes like a digital ninja. Released in 2002, this roguelike RPG offers a tile-based cyberpu...

Stratego brings the classic board game of hidden armies to the computer, preserving the central trick that makes the original so entertaining: you never quite know what the other s...

Squarez Deluxe! is a 1993 puzzle game built around colored blocks, careful positioning, and the increasingly dangerous realization that your apparently brilliant move has just ruin...

Remember when being radical meant wearing neon shorts and dodging killer squirrels on a skateboard? No? Well, Awesome Earl in SkateRock is here to educate you. Released in 1988, th...

Independence War takes space combat seriously, almost stubbornly so. Instead of arcade-style dogfights, it presents a Newtonian flight model where momentum, inertia, and positionin...

Global Effect takes a slightly different angle, blending strategy with a more experimental edge. It’s not always clear what it wants to be, but that’s part of the appea...

Hat Trick is a compact sports game centered on ice hockey and built around the straightforward pleasures of shooting, defending, and trying to put the puck in the net before the ot...

If Dizzy was an egg on an adventure, Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk turns that concept up a notch with a proper fairytale plot. Released in 1993 for DOS, the game sees Dizzy set out...

F-15 Strike Eagle is one of those games that practically defined what a combat flight simulator should be in the 1980s. It drops you into the cockpit of the legendary F-15 and tell...

If you’ve ever wondered what Bill Gates was doing before becoming a household name, Donkey BAS holds the answer: programming a game about avoiding pixelated donkeys on a high...

Trade in your sword and crown for a dice cup in King Graham’s Board Game Challenge. The noble hero of King’s Quest takes a break from slaying dragons to play board game...

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...

Quarky & Quaysoo's Turbo Science is a 1992 educational game that tries to make science more entertaining by adding colorful characters, experiments, and the sort of playful present...

Expectations were understandably enormous for Master of Orion 3, a sequel to one of strategy gaming's most beloved series. The game introduces ambitious ideas, including highly aut...

Realms of the Haunting is a 1997 horror adventure that blends first-person exploration, puzzles, combat, and a substantial supernatural story. Players investigate a mysterious hous...

Vengeance of Excalibur is a fantasy role-playing adventure built around the legendary sword Excalibur and a suitably grand quest involving magic, monsters, and medieval intrigue. P...

Virtual Pool is one of those pool simulations that takes the humble act of hitting a few colored balls and turns it into a surprisingly serious business. Released in 1995, it offer...