abandonware games sorted by popularity

Fairy Nights (2000) is a late-era fantasy title that leans heavily into charm rather than spectacle. Built for Windows XP, it feels like a cozy bedtime story turned into an interac...

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...

Heart of the Maelstrom brings epic dungeon crawling to dizzying heights, challenging players with sprawling levels, fiendish enemies, and puzzles that seem to require a PhD in pati...

The Neuromancer video game, released in 1988 by Interplay Productions, is an adventure/role-playing game loosely based on William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer (1984...

Ever wanted to experience the grim, claustrophobic life of a WWII submarine captain without leaving your desk? Aces of the Deep (1994, DOS) delivers that dream in spades — to...

EcoQuest 2 takes its environmental message seriously but packages it in a way that’s engaging rather than preachy. You explore lush rainforest environments, solving puzzles t...

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...

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...

F29 Retaliator is what happens when a flight simulator decides it wants to be a blockbuster action movie. You’re piloting a fictional next-generation stealth fighter through ...

Emmanuelle: A Game of Eroticism is less about eroticism and more about awkward curiosity. Released in 1989, it’s a slow, text-heavy experience filled with suggestion, innuend...

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...

Ms. Pac-Man is a classic arcade game released by Midway in 1982 (1984 for DOS) as a follow-up to the original Pac-Man (1980), developed by Namco. While its core gameplay ...

TV Sports: Basketball is one of those games that feels like it really wanted to impress you with its presentation—and honestly, it does a decent job. Released in 1990, it blends ...

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 ...

Elite isn’t just a game; it’s a lifestyle choice. This 1987 DOS version throws you into a vast, uncaring galaxy and says, “Good luck.” There’s trading...

Super Space Invaders takes the old “shoot the aliens before they land” formula and pours a shot of espresso into it. The result? Faster, flashier, and mildly panic-indu...

Based on a classic Chinese novel, Bandit Kings of Ancient China combines strategy, RPG elements, and about 800 names you’ll never remember. You play one of 108 outlaws trying...

Mix one part turn-based strategy, one part fantasy novel, add a dash of dragon, and you get Age of Wonders (1999). This is the game where wizards rule, elves sulk in forests, and y...

A Personal Nightmare (1989) blends horror and detective work into one spooky little cocktail of 1980s DOS game design. You return to your hometown to find it overrun by demonic pos...

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...

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...

Star Goose is a classic video game developed by Logotron and released in 1988 for various home computer systems of that era, including the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and Amstra...