abandonware games sorted by popularity

Before Half-Life, there was Chasm: The Rift, a game where time-traveling mutants explode into limbs and every room looks like it was decorated by a doom-metal band. A first-person ...

Metal & Lace: The Battle of the Robo Babes is a video game developed by Megatech Software and published by Forest Interactive in 1993. It's an adult-themed fighting game for MS...

Ivan 'Iron Man' Stewart's Super Off Road is an abandoned diagonal-down off-road racing game developed by Leland and released by Virgin Interactive in 1990 for DOS, but also publish...

Rome wasn’t built in a day—but you’ll conquer it in one afternoon. Centurion (1990) lets you play as a Roman commander with delusions of grandeur and a thing for ...

Maniac Mansion Deluxe is the unofficial sequel to the acclaimed point & click adventure game released by LucasFilm in 1987. Maniac Mansion Deluxe it's a fan-made adventure deve...

Let’s be honest: Cobra Mission is remembered less for its RPG mechanics and more for its... risqué content. The first “eroge” RPG translated into English, ...

SimFarm is a simulation video game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts in 1993. In SimFarm, players take on the role of a farmer and manage various aspects of runni...

Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf (1994) gives you one helicopter, a desert full of angry enemies, and more explosions than a summer blockbuster. It’s part shooter, part reso...

If you ever wanted to play a point-and-click adventure where the protagonists have the combined IQ of a slice of cheese, Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity is your masterpie...

In Teenage Queen, you step into the awkward, melodramatic shoes of a young woman navigating romance, school drama, and questionable life decisions. It feels like someone turned a s...

Sid Meier's Colonization is Civilization’s scrappy, historically charged cousin. You start with a tiny ship and a dream: exploit the New World before the other European power...

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 ...

SimCity 3000 is a city-building simulation game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It was released in 1999 as the third major installment in the SimCity series, f...

If you’ve ever wanted to conquer a fantasy world while feeling like a medieval accountant with anger issues, Warlords 2 has you covered. Released in 1993, it’s a turn-b...

Contra: Locked and Loaded is like caffeine in video game form—fast, explosive, and just a little dangerous for your health. You’re running, you’re gunning, and yo...

Chessmaster 9000 is a chess game developed by Ubisoft and released in 2002. It's part of the Chessmaster series, which has been around since the 1980s. Chessmaster 9000 was known f...

Days of Thunder (1990) is what happens when Hollywood’s love affair with Tom Cruise collides with DOS racing. Based on the movie of the same name, it’s an attempt to ca...

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...

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...

What do you get when you mix Mad Max, Car Wars, and a fondness for vehicular homicide? You get Autoduel (1985, DOS), a top-down driving RPG where your car is your castle and your g...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is a geopolitical strategy game developed by Chris Crawford and released in 1985. It is considered a classic in the genre of political and strate...