abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat is a combat flight simulation video game released in 1991 by Electronic Arts. The game is named after and endorsed by the real-life aviation legend, Chuck...

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:...

Gold of the Americas: The Conquest of the New World is a strategy game that invites you to rewrite history, usually by making the same mistakes but with more confidence. You manage...

Maniac Mansion is one of the most famous point-and-click adventure games developed by Lucasfilm Games, designed by Ron Gilbert (who later created Monkey Island) and Gary Winnick. T...

The spiritual sequel to SimTower, Yoot Tower asks the important question: what if you were god, but only over elevators, sushi bars, and the occasional alien invasion? It’s a...

Tetris is the kind of game that looks harmless until you realize you’ve been staring at falling blocks for three hours straight. Released in 1987, this deceptively simple puzzle ...

Released in 1998 for Windows XP-era PCs, Fatal Relations is an interactive drama that leans heavily into adult themes, intrigue, and morally questionable choices. More visual novel...

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...

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... ...

Reach for the Stars is a 4X strategy game from before the term “4X” even existed. It’s pure, stripped-down galactic conquest: research tech, colonize worlds, and ...

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, ...

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...

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...

Star Trek: Birth of the Federation is a turn-based strategy video game set in the Star Trek universe. The game was developed by MicroProse Software and published by Infogrames for ...

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...

Season of the Sakura (1997) is what happens when a high school dating sim meets anime melodrama. You play a student navigating the treacherous waters of friendship, love, and quest...

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...

By 1989, Dragon’s Lair had already become legendary in arcades, so its DOS port had a lot to live up to. Spoiler: it couldn’t quite match the arcade’s gorgeous la...

Fairy Nights (2000) is a late-era fantasy title that leans heavily into charm rather than spectacle. Built for Windows XP, it feels like a cozy bedtime story turned into an interac...

Doh is back, and he’s mad - presumably because no one understood what he was in the first place. Arkanoid 2 takes the original formula and dials everything up: more levels, m...

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...

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...