abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

Uncharted Waters 2: New Horizons takes everything its predecessor attempted and refines it into something richer and more engaging. Released in 1995, it expands the scope with mult...

Pipe Mania (also known as Pipe Dream is a tile-matching (sort of) puzzle game about flowing liquids developed by The Assembly Line in 1989. You must build a path made of pipe piece...

Archon Ultra is what happens when you smash chess into an arcade cabinet and call it a day. This updated version of the original Archon throws in jazzed-up graphics and faster game...

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...

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne is a turn-based strategy game developed by Triumph Studios and published by Gathering of Developers. It was released in 2002 as a sequel to t...

In Jungle Strike, players pilot military helicopters through explosive missions that blend action, strategy, and just enough chaos to keep things interesting. Released in 1995, the...

Guerrilla War wastes no time pretending to be subtle. You run upward, you shoot everything that moves, and occasionally you rescue a hostage who seems oddly calm about the whole si...

Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0 (MSFS 4.0) is a flight simulation game released by Microsoft in 1989 for MS-DOS. It was the fourth major version of the Microsoft Flight Simulator se...

Crusade in Europe is a detailed World War II strategy game that lets you take command of the Allied or Axis forces during some of the war’s most famous campaigns. It’s ...

Top Gun is an abandoned flight combat simulation game developed by Ocean Software and released by Thunder Mountain in 1987 for DOS and a number of other 8 bit platforms. As the tit...

Seal Team (1993) drops you into the muddy waters of the Vietnam War as part of an elite Navy SEAL squad. It’s surprisingly realistic for its time—meticulously tactical,...

Railroad Tycoon Deluxe feels like someone took the original game, showered it with confetti, tuned the engine, and handed it back with a wink. Better colors, refined scenarios, and...

In Bert and the Snake, you are Bert. And yes, there's a snake. That’s the plot. It’s a maze game from a time when naming conventions were refreshingly honest and graphi...

Pyjamarama is an abandoned action adventure game released in 2004 for Windows; it's a remake of the original Pyjamarama. The original is a classic video game developed by Mikr...

American Conquest is the kind of game that throws hundreds of little soldiers at you and says, "Good luck, General!" Set during the early colonization of the Americas, this RTS ble...

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos (1993) is a classic first-person RPG that understands pacing better than many of its peers. It offers a rich fantasy world, memorable characters,...

Just when you thought Keen could catch a break, Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle drops him into a mystical realm full of bouncing jelly beans and sentient toasters. This is w...

A detective adventure inspired by Agatha Christie’s collaborative story, The Scoop (1989, DOS) turns you into a newspaper reporter poking around a suspicious death with nothi...

For those who got hopelessly addicted to the card game inside Final Fantasy VIII, Triple Triad Gold (2000) was like someone saying, “Here, now you can ruin your productivity ...

Dungeons & Dragons meets Disney on a sugar rush. Tangled Tales is a bright, humorous RPG that cheerfully pokes fun at fantasy clichés while still serving a solid adventu...

Long before Minecraft let us build worlds, Adventure Construction Set handed you a digital Lego box and said, “Go nuts.” Want to make a dungeon full of orcs and ham san...

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is often spoken of in the same breath as the finest adventure games ever made, and for once, nostalgia is not exaggerating. Released in 1992,...