abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

Questprobe Featuring Spider-Man is a 1986 adventure game that puts the world’s most famous web-slinger into a computer-generated mystery filled with exploration, puzzles, and the...

Tomb Raider introduced Lara Croft to a generation of players and combined third-person exploration, platforming, puzzle solving and gunplay into a remarkably atmospheric adventure....

The Sentinel is one of those games that seems simple for about five minutes, right up until you realize the entire landscape is part of the puzzle. You control a Synthoid moving ac...

In 1987, Driller arrived as a revolutionary 3D game that looked light-years ahead of its time. Using the Freescape engine, it let players explore a fully 3D world—on a DOS ma...

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...

Uninvited is one of those games that makes you question every decision, usually right after you make it. Released in 1987, it blends adventure gameplay with a spooky atmosphere tha...

Knights of Xentar (1994, DOS) is what happens when anime meets adult humor and forgets to use its filter. This cheeky RPG follows a perverted hero on a quest filled with ridiculous...

Microsoft Word represents one of the most important steps in the transformation of the personal computer into an everyday writing machine. Early versions were a far cry from the en...

Runaway City is a 1995 DOS game that combines exploration, action, and urban adventure in a setting where simply getting from one place to another can become an unexpectedly compli...

Premier Manager was released in 1992 by Gremlin Interactive for the Commodore Amiga and MS-DOS platforms. It was one of the earliest football management simulation games and allowe...

Also known as Puzzle Bobble, this bubble-popping classic stars those cute dragons from Bubble Bobble, now in competitive puzzle mode. Match three colors, clear the screen, panic as...

Tetris 2.0 attempts to spice up the classic formula with a few twists, like a chef adding unexpected ingredients to a beloved recipe. Sometimes it works, sometimes you miss the ori...

If you ever wanted to run a football club without leaving your chair, The Manager (1991, DOS) delivers. This early management sim lets you buy players, balance budgets, and suffer ...

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...

If your childhood involved model trains and elaborate setups that your cat kept destroying, 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown is digital therapy. Released in 2000 for Windows XP, it mixes ...

Metal & Lace combines giant robots, futuristic combat, and adult-oriented visual novel elements into an unusual package that certainly does not suffer from a lack of ambition. Play...

BloodRayne combines third-person action, supernatural horror and a heroine who is considerably better equipped for monster hunting than most people. Rayne, a dhampir working as an ...

Before Doomguy started ripping and tearing, there was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. A stealth game where sneaking is mandatory, disguises are fashionable, and stabbing Nazis is encour...

Impossible Mission 2 proves that espionage is mostly about jumping carefully and avoiding suspicious furniture. Released in 1988 for DOS, this sequel expands on the original's plat...

When Links: The Challenge of Golf appeared in 1990, it immediately set new standards for realistic golf simulations. Beautifully designed courses, convincing physics, and carefully...

Before Wake of the Ravager, there was Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, the first CRPG to bring Athas to life. It was a bold departure from the usual Gold Box formula, with more freedom i...

ADOM is what happens when a rogue, a wizard, and a hungry troll walk into a dungeon and never come out. Released in 1996, this roguelike classic is brutal, brilliant, and unapologe...

One of the best licensed games of the '90s, Blade Runner (1997) puts you in the rain-soaked shoes of Ray McCoy, a detective tracking down replicants in a world where it's always ni...

Released in 1988, Life & Death offers an unusually serious medical simulation where players assume the role of a surgeon responsible for diagnosing illnesses and performing delicat...

Based on a book series almost nobody remembers, Below The Root drops you into a serene world of treehouses, talking children, and deeply philosophical moral choices. Combat does no...

Ecstatica is a haunting anomaly in the DOS library, blending early 3D visuals with a dark fairy-tale atmosphere. Its polygonal characters may look crude by modern standards, but th...

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...

Quest for Glory 4: Shadows of Darkness takes the series into a much darker setting, sending the hero to the ominous land of Mordavia. Released in 1993, the game blends role-playing...

Tristan Pinball is a digital pinball table from an era when computer hardware was expected to imitate a real arcade machine despite having considerably fewer pixels and absolutely ...