abandonware games sorted by popularity

If Doom and Gauntlet had a lovechild, Alien Breed would be the weird kid who hangs out in dark corridors with a shotgun. Released in 1993 for DOS, this top-down shooter throws you ...

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...

Do you find spreadsheets thrilling? Does the idea of profit margins make your heart race? Then Business Simulator is your kind of party. It’s all about running a faceless com...

Rodent's Revenge is a puzzle video game originally released in 1991 as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows. Developed by Christopher Lee Fraley, the game is simple...

Face Off! (1989) wastes no time telling you exactly what it wants to be: fast, noisy, and slightly unhinged. This DOS arcade sports game throws subtlety out of the window and repla...

Dune II, released in 1992, is a pioneering real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios. Set in the world of Frank Herbert's Dune, players command noble houses in a battle...

Hugo's House of Horrors is an adventure game developed by David P. Gray and released in the early 1990s. The game is a text-based adventure with simple graphics, and it gained popu...

Few adventure games manage to feel as effortlessly cool as Full Throttle. Released in 1995 by LucasArts, it places you in the boots of Ben, the gravel-voiced leader of the Polecats...

In Cosmic Soldier: Psychic War, you’re not just fighting enemies—you’re reading their minds while doing it. This RPG mixes sci-fi exploration with telepathic abil...

Turbo Pascal 7 (TP7) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed by Borland as an ev...

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...

Atomic Bomberman (1997) takes the classic formula of blowing up your friends in adorable mayhem and gives it a 90s makeover — complete with voice quips, flashy graphics, and ...

Alien Syndrome (1989) is a top-down shooter where you save hostages, shoot aliens, and scream internally because you’re always out of time. It’s frantic arcade action a...

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a classic role-playing game developed by Troika Games and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 2001 for Microsoft Windows. T...

In Diggers 2: Extractors, released in 1995, the digging franchise doubled down on strategy while adding a dash of science fiction flair. This time, your miners aren’t just bu...

Mech Commander: Gold (1999) is tactical perfection for fans of giant robots and careful planning. Set in the BattleTech universe, the game puts you in command of a mercenary squad ...

Castle Adventure is what happens when a medieval fantasy RPG gets crammed into a game smaller than your average selfie. ASCII graphics? Check. Typing commands like “GET SWORD...

First Samurai is a classic action-platformer game originally released in 1991. The game was initially available on the Amiga and Atari ST, with later ports to the Commodore 64, DOS...

Alien Rampage (1996) is what happens when Duke Nukem gets stranded on a hostile alien planet and decides subtlety is for cowards. It’s a side-scrolling shooter dripping with ...

Before Worms made artillery games cute, Bang! Bang! let you and a friend lob cartoonish shells at each other using nothing but angles, wind speed, and pure spite. It's a math lesso...

Car Builder is less about speed and more about spreadsheets—just with axles. In this 1982 gem, you don’t race cars, you design them. From gear ratios to weight distribu...

In the 25th century, bureaucracy is still awful—but now you also have laser guns. Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday is a surprisingly solid sci-fi RPG that blends space oper...

1893: A World's Fair Mystery is an interactive fiction game developed by the American studio Illuminated Lantern and released in 2002. Set during the Chicago World's Columbian Expo...

Board game night went digital in 1998 with Axis and Allies, a strategy title that lets you rewrite WWII—assuming you don’t forget where you left your infantry. Fans of ...

Shadowgate (1988, DOS/Windows 3.x/Mac) is a point-and-click adventure that politely invites you into a castle and then gleefully kills you for touching the wrong thing. Armed with ...