abandonware games sorted by popularity

Disney’s The Jungle Book asks the eternal question: can a small boy raised by wolves really out-dance a bunch of monkeys while dodging snakes? The answer is yes, but not with...

Quarantine is a 1994 action game that takes the idea of driving through a dangerous city and removes almost every reassuring element of the experience. The player takes control of ...

Lotus: The Ultimate Challenge (1993, DOS) is the kind of racing game that makes you feel like you should be wearing aviators and blasting synthwave. It’s pure, high-speed sim...

If you like your point-and-click adventures served with a side of absurd British humor, Discworld (1995, DOS) is a feast. Based on Terry Pratchett’s beloved universe, the gam...

Army Men lets you live out your childhood fantasy of plastic soldier warfare without the hassle of crawling under the couch. You control Sarge, a green-tinted war machine with a st...

Supremacy: Your Will Be Done is a grand strategy game with a suitably enormous ambition: conquer space, expand your empire, manage resources, and generally become the sort of inter...

Baldur's Gate a fantasy RPG set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe which is regarded as the RPG that brought new life in a dying genre in the late 90s. Baldur's Gate was d...

Released in 1989, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade takes the film's adventure and translates it into a point-and-click experience with surprising elegance. It captures the charm,...

Tyrian 2000 is what happens when a classic shoot ’em up decides to go all in and then some. Released in 1999, it delivers relentless action, an absurd variety of weapons, and mor...

Released in 1984, Hack is one of those games that quietly shaped an entire genre while pretending not to care if you understood it or not. This early roguelike doesn’t bother...

Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf (1994) gives you one helicopter, a desert full of angry enemies, and more explosions than a summer blockbuster. It’s part shooter, part reso...

Yu-Gi-Oh! Online takes the collectible card game into a persistent digital environment where players can build decks, duel opponents, and spend a suspicious amount of time discussi...

Time travel is confusing enough, but Lost in Time (1993, DOS) makes it gloriously absurd. You wake up in a ship’s hold in the 19th century, trying to figure out how you got t...

X-Men: Madness in Murderworld sends Marvel's mutant heroes into the bizarre and dangerous amusement park created by the villain Arcade. Rather than offering a conventional superher...

Weird Dreams is exactly the sort of title that does not bother pretending to be normal. Released in 1988, it sends the player through a bizarre nightmare world filled with surreal ...

Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light ver...

Despite its familiar title, Mario and Luigi for DOS offers a very different experience from Nintendo's famous adventures. Created outside the official series, it delivers straightf...

MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients is the sequel to MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy. It is a science fiction role-playing game (RPG) released in 1991, developed by Par...

God of Thunder is a classic computer game developed by Adept Software and released in 1993. It's a puzzle platformer with a fantasy theme. In the game, you control Thor, the Norse ...

Metal Mutant offers an imaginative action adventure built around a shape-shifting robot capable of transforming into different forms. Each form provides unique abilities, making ex...

Hard Nova blends space exploration with role-playing elements, creating an experience that feels like a tabletop campaign decided to go digital and slightly unpredictable. You mana...

Mix one part turn-based strategy, one part fantasy novel, add a dash of dragon, and you get Age of Wonders (1999). This is the game where wizards rule, elves sulk in forests, and y...

Cover Girl Strip Poker is exactly what the title promises—poker, but with a risqué twist. You play cards, your opponent plays coy, and the stakes are… let&rsquo...

Few games capture the feeling of “the galaxy is huge and you are spectacularly insignificant” quite like Frontier: Elite 2. Released in 1993, this ambitious sequel thro...

Forget Freddy’s razor glove for a second - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989) for DOS is terrifying in its own way. Mostly because of the controls. You play as a teen trying to...

Myth: The Fallen Lords is a landmark real-time strategy game that combines intense tactical battles with a remarkably dark and atmospheric fantasy setting. Players command armies a...

MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy is a science fiction role-playing game (RPG) released in 1990. The Zhodani Conspiracy is the first installment in the MegaTraveller ser...

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is one of the foundational computer role-playing games, and playing it today reveals just how much modern RPGs owe to its ideas. Playe...

Step into the polygonal shoes of Edward Carnby (or Emily Hartwood, if you're feeling bold) in Alone in the Dark, the grandfather of survival horror games. Released in 1992 for DOS,...

By Ultima 3, the series had discovered the magic of party-based adventuring. No longer a lonely trek, now you command a ragtag group of heroes who bicker only in your imagination. ...