abandonware games sorted by popularity

There are games with subtle titles, and then there is Fuck Quest, which clearly decided subtlety was overrated. Released in 1998 for DOS, it belongs to that peculiar era when share...

International Ninja Rabbits sounds like a fever dream, and in many ways it plays like one too. Released in 1991, this platformer combines martial arts, oversized vegetables, and he...

Hidden Agenda takes a different approach, focusing on narrative and decision-making rather than action. It places you in situations where choices matter, often forcing you to weigh...

In Altered Destiny, a perfectly average guy named P.J. Barrett gets sucked into a bizarre alien dimension because he answered a phone call. Seriously. What follows is a classic poi...

Grim Fandango is an adventure game developed and published by LucasArts. It was released in 1998 and is known for its unique setting and distinctive art style. The game was directe...

Ah yes, the game that crawled so Ultima could run. Akalabeth is a wireframe dungeon crawl where you descend into monster-infested labyrinths with the elegance of a lost spreadsheet...

Powermonger takes the god-game formula of Populous and gives it teeth. Instead of playing benevolent deity, you’re more like a slightly cranky warlord, sending little soldier...

Tank controls + polar bears + Cold War vibes = Arctic Fox. In this early vehicular combat sim, you're piloting a futuristic snow tank across an icy wasteland to stop some aliens or...

Let’s be honest—Centerfold Squares (1988) is what happened when someone asked, “What if Qix but hornier?” You draw squares to reveal pixelated images of... ...

Boulder Dash is a classic action-puzzle video game that was first released in 1984 by First Star Software. In Boulder Dash, players control a character named Rockford as he di...

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...

Ah, Advantage Tennis—where the graphics are flat, the physics are questionable, and the grunts are blessedly absent. This DOS-era sports sim serves up matches that somehow fe...

Released in 1987, this is less of a simulator and more of a fever dream where you pilot a flying box over a grid pretending to be terrain. 3-D Helicopter Simulator was ambitious fo...

Lemmings is a classic puzzle-platformer video game developed by DMA Design (now known as Rockstar North) and published by Psygnosis. It was originally released in 1991 for the Amig...

Interactive Girls Club Games is one of those early ’90s curiosities that tried to blend interactivity with, let’s say, “adult-themed social simulation.” The...

Dick Tracy (1990) tries to turn the classic comic-strip detective into a video game, and the result is equal parts charming and clunky. You’ll chase gangsters, dodge bullets,...

Grand Prix Circuit is a fascinating early attempt at turning real-world racing into something playable without requiring a steering wheel the size of your desk. In Grand Prix Circu...

Fallout 2 takes everything that worked in the original and gleefully pushes it further, louder, and weirder. Released in 1998, it expands the world, the humor, and the sheer number...

The Dig is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by LucasArts. It was originally released in 1995 for MS-DOS and later for other platforms, including Mac OS and ...

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988) takes everything that made the first game fun and cranks it up a notch. The story begins with tragedy—Marian, the damsel from the first g...

Jagged Alliance 2 is a turn-based tactical role-playing strategy game developed by Sir-Tech and released in 1999 for Windows. It is the sequel to the original Jagged Alliance and h...

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? If that line doesn’t make you want to punch a ninja through a hotdog stand, nothing will. Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja is peak...

If you ever wanted to fly a helicopter that looks like it belongs in a Michael Bay fever dream, Comanche: Maximum Overkill (1992, DOS) is for you. This voxel-powered beast puts you...

You thought the first one was hard? Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty laughs at your pain and then asks you to infiltrate a Gestapo HQ with a knife and a prayer. This standalone e...

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...

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...