abandonware games sorted by popularity

Lemmings 95, released for Windows in 1994, packages the classic puzzle experience with updated presentation while preserving everything that made the original games so addictive. H...

RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 expands the theme-park management formula with more attractions, construction options, scenarios, and creative possibilities. Players design elaborate amusem...

Ascendancy is the friendlier, trippier cousin of Master of Orion. It’s 4X strategy in space, with bizarre alien races, psychedelic menus, and a soundtrack that sounds like it...

The adventures of Willy Beamish is a point-and-click adventure that perfectly captures the chaos of being a kid with too much imagination and not enough discipline. Willy is consta...

Ultra Mortal Kombat Vendetta is a fan-made love letter to excessive violence and familiar characters, created well after the peak of the franchise it imitates. It throws subtlety o...

Empire: Wargame of the Century feels like a military textbook that accidentally became entertaining. Spanning centuries of warfare, it combines grand strategy with a surprisingly a...

Heroes of Might and Magic II takes the foundation of its predecessor and polishes it with the care of someone who genuinely loved the original. The visuals are richer, the mechanic...

Space Hulk is a 1993 tactical game based on the Warhammer 40,000 board game, placing squads of Space Marines inside enormous abandoned spacecraft known as hulks. These dark corrido...

Flashback: The Quest for Identity feels like a playable sci-fi movie that misplaced its budget but kept its ambition. You wake up with amnesia, which is gaming shorthand for &ldquo...

Dungeon Hack is a dungeon-crawling role-playing game (RPG) developed by DreamForge Intertainment and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). It was released in 1993 for MS-...

Conquest of the New World (Deluxe Edition) invites you to discover new lands, build colonies, and occasionally “accidentally” wipe out entire civilizations while smilin...

Solar Winds 2: Galaxy continues the space exploration and trading adventure established by its predecessor, giving players a large science-fiction environment to explore. The game ...

Castle of Dr. Brain is a puzzle lover’s fever dream. It’s like someone crammed a Mensa test into a haunted house and added robot arms. You’re solving logic grids,...

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...

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter throws the player into a first-person adventure where prehistoric creatures have apparently decided that modern civilization was a terrible idea. Armed with ...

Atomix is a tile-based puzzle game released in 1990 by Thalion Software for platforms like Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and Commodore 64. The objective of Atomix is to assemble mo...

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

From the creators of Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace (1989, DOS) is a gloriously over-the-top animated adventure where timing is everything — literally. You play Ace, a muscle...

Quest for Glory 1: So You Want to Be a Hero is a 1989 adventure RPG that asks a deceptively simple question: what happens when an inexperienced adventurer decides to become a hero?...

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe is a 1991 DOS flight combat simulation from Lucasfilm Games that combines arcade-style flying with strategic management during an alternate-history ...

If Frontier: Elite 2 opened the door to a vast universe, Frontier: First Encounters in 1995 basically kicked it wide open and invited you to wander in. This sequel expands the form...

American McGee's Alice takes Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and gives it a decidedly darker makeover. Alice is no longer simply wandering through a whimsical fantasy populated by eccen...

Ah yes, Blood (1997)—the cheerful little game where you rise from the grave, wield a pitchfork, and quote evil-sounding movie lines while setting cultists on fire. It’s...

Doh is back, and he’s mad - presumably because no one understood what he was in the first place. Arkanoid 2 takes the original formula and dials everything up: more levels, m...

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...

Wings of Fury is a compact aerial action game that puts you behind the controls of a fighter aircraft and wastes little time explaining why the sky is currently full of people tryi...

Released in 1995, Psycho Pinball is what happens when traditional pinball eats too much sugar and loses its mind. It’s loud, colorful, and gleefully unhinged, with four disti...

Strip Poker Professional: REV B is a revised edition of the adult poker game, keeping the central formula intact while presenting itself as an updated version of the original. The ...

Metal Mutant offers an imaginative action adventure built around a shape-shifting robot capable of transforming into different forms. Each form provides unique abilities, making ex...