abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

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...

Strip Poker Professional gives the familiar poker-and-strip concept a more serious-sounding title, although “professional” may be doing some heavy lifting here. The game revolv...

Warlords is a fantasy strategy game that turns the world into a massive board game of conquest. You command heroes, raise armies, capture cities, and summon mythical creatures in a...

ARJ is a file compression utility and file format created by Robert K. Jung. The name "ARJ" stands for "Archived by Robert Jung." It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s a...

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...

Blackthorne (1994) is what happens when a '90s action hero gets lost in a side-scrolling alien world and decides to shoot everything until it makes sense. You’re Kyle, a shot...

Forget Freddy’s razor glove for a second - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989) for DOS is terrifying in its own way. Mostly because of the controls. You play as a teen trying to...

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is a strange but fascinating blend of adventure game, RPG, and comedy horror. You wander through a spooky mansion, solve puzzles, fight monsters, and g...

Inca 2: Wiracocha doubles down on everything its predecessor attempted, for better and occasionally for worse. The sequel streamlines some mechanics while expanding the universe, l...

In Syndicate, you don’t just play the bad guy—you manage a full corporate evil empire, complete with mind-controlled agents in trench coats and a suspicious lack of HR ...

Fascination, released in 1991 for DOS, is a point-and-click adventure that clearly wanted to be edgy, mysterious, and just a little bit scandalous. Set in a neon-soaked future full...

Midtown Madness turns the streets of Chicago into one enormous playground for chaotic driving, where racing is only one of several excellent excuses to ignore traffic laws. Players...

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...

Before co-op brawlers were everywhere, there was Double Dragon (1988 on DOS). Two brothers, one kidnapped girlfriend, and enough street thugs to populate a small city—that&rs...

Gremlins 2: The New Batch leans into the chaos of its source material and then adds a layer of video game unpredictability on top. In Gremlins 2, you deal with enemies that are as ...

Lexi-Cross, released in 1991, transforms crossword puzzles into an engaging computer experience that rewards vocabulary, observation, and patience. Rather than relying on fast refl...

Fable (1996) is one of those DOS curiosities that feels like it was built late at night with equal parts ambition and caffeine. It presents itself as a fantasy role-playing experie...

Elvira: The Arcade Game trades puzzles for action and subtlety for pure chaos. This is fast, brutal, side-scrolling combat with monsters pouring in from every direction. Elvira&rsq...

Fade to Black (1995) aims high and mostly lands on its feet, delivering a cinematic science-fiction adventure that feels ambitious even today. As a sequel to Flashback, it keeps th...

Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? turns American geography into a detective game, sending you from state to state while tracking down Carmen and her gang. Each investigation dep...

Part Cold War thriller, part adventure game, part submarine simulator, Code-Name: Iceman is a Sierra title that demands patience, precision, and a deep respect for diplomacy and to...

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...

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, ...

Aces of the Pacific (1992, DOS) takes to the skies over WWII’s Pacific Theater, where you can dogfight in legendary aircraft and prove your piloting prowess — or spin i...

Aldo’s Adventure is what you get when someone squints at Donkey Kong and decides to remake it after four cups of coffee and a long nap. You play Aldo, a brave little guy whos...

The Bard's Tale 2: The Destiny Knight expands the original formula with a larger world, tougher enemies, new locations, and another opportunity to discover that adventuring is most...

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?...

Released in 1988, BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception is part RPG, part strategy, part “did I just die in the tutorial again?” You’re a young MechWarrior on...

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,...