abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before Football Manager made spreadsheets cool, there was Bundesliga Manager Professional, a game where managing a German football team involved more math than actual football. You...

Rogue is one of the first RPGs in the history of video gaming. It's a text-based dungeon crawler in which you have to fight your way in the dungeon to recover the Amulet of Yendor....

Interactive Girls Club Games is one of those early ’90s curiosities that tried to blend interactivity with, let’s say, “adult-themed social simulation.” The...

By 1989, SSI doubled down with Vol. 2, offering more battles, more maps, and the same demanding mechanics. If you enjoyed the first, you’ll feel right at home; if you didn&rs...

Elona looks innocent, almost cute, and then immediately proves it has no interest in your comfort. This roguelike RPG is bizarre, unpredictable, and gleefully cruel. You can become...

Yes, it’s called Fish!, and yes, it’s as quirky as the exclamation mark suggests. This is a puzzle-platformer with personality, placing you in surreal environments that...

Bubble Bobble is widely regarded as one of the most beloved and charming platform arcade games of all time. The gameplay objective in Bubble Bobble is straightforward: players must...

Rambo III is an action video game based on the 1988 action film of the same name, featuring the iconic character John Rambo, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone. The game was developed...

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet software for personal computers, and it played a pivotal role in the early history of personal computing. It was developed by Dan Bricklin and Bo...

SimTower is an old Windows 3.x (1994) building and business simulation game where the player is tasked with the management of a skyscraper nonetheless. Raise floors, build apartmen...

Contra: Locked and Loaded is like caffeine in video game form—fast, explosive, and just a little dangerous for your health. You’re running, you’re gunning, and yo...

Metal & Lace: The Battle of the Robo Babes is a video game developed by Megatech Software and published by Forest Interactive in 1993. It's an adult-themed fighting game for MS...

Castle of the Winds is a fantasy roguelike role-playing game developed by SaadaSoft in the early 1990s. It was designed for Windows 3.x and is notable for being one of the earliest...

Ivan 'Iron Man' Stewart's Super Off Road is an abandoned diagonal-down off-road racing game developed by Leland and released by Virgin Interactive in 1990 for DOS, but also publish...

Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon, also released in 1991, takes everything that worked in the original and expands it thoughtfully. The dungeon design is more varied, ...

Released in 1983, Battle for Normandy plays less like a game and more like a history book that came alive, donned a helmet, and asked for a coffee. This is wargaming at its purest:...

Let’s be honest—Centerfold Squares (1988) is what happened when someone asked, “What if Qix but hornier?” You draw squares to reveal pixelated images of... ...

It Came from the Desert is a cinematic masterpiece of giant ants, paranoia, and 1950s sci-fi homage. Released in 1990 for DOS, it blends action, strategy, and storytelling into a u...

The Neuromancer video game, released in 1988 by Interplay Productions, is an adventure/role-playing game loosely based on William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer (1984...

Based on the fantasy novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Death Gate (1994) throws you into an epic, puzzle-heavy adventure. Imagine Myst, but with more dragons and a script ...

Borland Turbo Basic was a programming language developed by Borland, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Turbo Basic was part of the Turbo series of progr...

Blackthorne (1994) is what happens when a '90s action hero gets lost in a side-scrolling alien world and decides to shoot everything until it makes sense. You’re Kyle, a shot...

ARJ is a file compression utility and file format created by Robert K. Jung. The name "ARJ" stands for "Archived by Robert Jung." It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s a...

PGA Tour Golf is an abandoned golf game - the first in the PGA Tour series - designed by Lee Actor and Dennis Koble, developed by Sterling Silver Software and released by Electroni...