abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1989, Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs is pure old-school sports gaming: simple to learn, hard to master, and endlessly competitive. The presentation is minimal,...

4Play was a risqué trivia and multi-player board-style game released in the mid-1990s. Designed as a party game, it combined trivia questions, mini-games, and challenge...

Lure of the Temptress (1992, DOS) is dark fantasy done right — with muddy streets, suspicious peasants, and a villainess who’s equal parts charm and cruelty. As Diermot...

Wolfenstein 3D is the first-person shooter that popularized the whole genre in the early 90s and is considered one of the greatest games ever made. Wolfenstein 3D was designed by J...

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...

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...

Angel 3 is that kind of DOS game where you sit down thinking "I'll give it five minutes" and three hours later you're still trying to figure out what just happened. Released in 199...

Arkanoid is a classic arcade video game that was first released in 1986 by Taito. It is a breakout-style game, which means that the primary objective is to break a wall of bricks o...

Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia is often spoken of with a certain reverence, and it is not hard to see why. Everything comes together with a confidence th...

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...

Galactix continues the grand space-shooter tradition with enthusiasm and a healthy disregard for your survival odds. You control a small but determined ship facing waves of enemy f...

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe is a combat flight simulation game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games (later known as LucasArts) in 1991. It was designed for MS-DOS systems...

Elvira: The Arcade Game trades puzzles for action and subtlety for pure chaos. This is fast, brutal, side-scrolling combat with monsters pouring in from every direction. Elvira&rsq...

The Amazing Spider-Man is a side-scrolling action game developed by Oxford Digital Enterprises and published by Paragon Software for MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST. The plot revolves ...

Black & White (2001) is what happens when a god game gets a bit too literal. You play as a deity, complete with a giant hand, an enormous ego, and a giant pet that poops on vil...

If you ever wondered what driving a luxury sports car felt like in the late 80s, Test Drive delivers that fantasy with all the pixelated swagger you could ask for. This pioneering ...

The final Championship Manager to grace DOS—and what a send-off. Season 97/98 is the fan-favorite for a reason: every transfer, every injury, every last-minute goal feels lik...

Part interactive novel, part point-and-click adventure, Daughter of Serpents (1992) is one of those games that makes you feel like you stumbled onto a forgotten pulp novel. Set in ...

When Fallout landed in 1997, it didn’t just introduce a new RPG, it redefined what post-apocalyptic storytelling could feel like. Set in a retro-futuristic wasteland dripping...

Elite isn’t just a game; it’s a lifestyle choice. This 1987 DOS version throws you into a vast, uncaring galaxy and says, “Good luck.” There’s trading...

Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures is a charmingly odd experiment that shrinks globe-trotting archaeology into bite-sized missions designed for quick play sessions. Viewed fr...

A direct sequel to Deathwatch, Ancients 2: Approaching Evil is like returning to your childhood neighborhood, except everyone’s still trying to kill you. Released in 1994, it...