abandonware games sorted by popularity

“Want some rye? ‘Course you do!” If that line triggers PTSD, congrats: you’ve played Return to Zork. This not-quite-sequel turns the beloved text adventure ...

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?...

Before Worms, before Scorched Earth, there was Tank Wars. Two or more tanks perched on random hills, firing explosive math problems at each other. Adjust your angle, set your power...

Italian noir meets circus mystery in Yellow Kid: Giallo al Circo, where you play a journalist with a yellow trench coat and more curiosity than self-preservation. The game’s ...

The ninja ant is back—and this time, he brought a friend. Zool 2 doubles down on the sugar-fueled mayhem of the first game with more levels, more enemies, and even more inexp...

Spy Hunter is a 1984 DOS version of the classic arcade action game, putting the player behind the wheel of a heavily armed sports car with a very simple mission: drive fast and mak...

DX-Ball 2 is a popular brick-breaking game that was first released in 1998 by Longbow Digital Arts. It serves as a sequel to the original DX-Ball, which was inspired by the classic...

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 1993 and designed by Jane Jensen. The game is ...

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...

SkyGlobe is an astronomy software that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was a DOS-based planetarium program that allowed users to explore the night sky in real-tim...

Released in 1994, Magic Carpet is one of those rare games that feels like someone mixed a fantasy novel with a flight simulator and then added enough explosions to keep everyone ha...

Released in 1992, _Jill of the Jungle_ introduced players to one of the most memorable heroines of the DOS platforming era. Jill runs, jumps, transforms into animals, and explores ...

StarCraft is Blizzard's landmark 1998 real-time strategy game, bringing three radically different factions into a fast, competitive struggle for control of the Koprulu Sector. The ...

Nobunaga's Ambition is a 1988 strategy game set during Japan’s turbulent Sengoku period, when political alliances were fragile, rival clans were everywhere, and peaceful retireme...

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...

Qix is a 1989 arcade-style puzzle game built around the strangely satisfying task of claiming territory while avoiding a dangerous moving shape. Players guide a marker across the s...

Released in 1996, Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail sends Larry aboard a luxurious cruise where romance, mystery, and comedy collide with spectacular enthusiasm. The hand-drawn a...

Pirates! Gold is a 1993 enhanced version of the legendary pirate adventure game, allowing players to become captains searching for treasure, fame, and opportunities to annoy rival ...

Legend of Cao Cao turns the turbulent history of ancient China into a tactical role-playing adventure centered on the famous warlord Cao Cao. Instead of simply marching armies arou...

Star Wars is a 1988 DOS game based on the original Star Wars trilogy, bringing the familiar universe of starfighters, space battles, and Imperial enemies to the home computer. The ...

SimCity 3000 continues Maxis's famous city-building series with a larger, more detailed simulation and considerably more ways for a mayor to make questionable decisions. Players de...

Marble Cooking is one of those wonderfully unusual puzzle games whose premise sounds completely normal until you actually begin playing. Guiding marbles through increasingly elabor...

Star Saga: Two - The Clathran Menace continues the science-fiction role-playing adventure of its predecessor, expanding the story and sending players deeper into a galaxy threatene...

GW-BASIC (short for Gee Whiz BASIC) is a dialect of the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft. It's one of the early implementations of BASIC and was included ...

Commander Keen 1: Marooned on Mars is a platform video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1990 as shareware for MS-DOS. The game follows the adv...

Few adventure games establish their unsettling atmosphere as quickly as Manhunter: New York. Set in a future where alien overseers dominate Earth, the story places you in the uncom...

Adventure meets archaeology in Pyramids of Egypt (1989), a classic maze platformer where you loot tombs, dodge snakes, and pray the ceiling doesn’t collapse on you. You play ...

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...

In King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne, King Graham trades royal paperwork for a perilous journey to find the woman destined to become his queen. The adventure expands upon its p...

The year is 1995, and Abuse brings us one of the slickest, darkest run-and-gun shooters ever to crawl out of a DOS/Linux/Mac basement. You play a guy in prison for a crime he didn&...