abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

Wolfenstein 3D is one of the landmark first-person shooters, placing players behind the eyes of an Allied soldier fighting through Nazi strongholds packed with guards, dogs, secret...

Hexen: Beyond Heretic expands on its predecessor with a confidence that borders on theatrical. The world is darker, the puzzles more intricate, and the overall experience richer, t...

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...

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games (now known as LucasArts). It was first released in 1988 for various p...

Keys to Maramon is a role-playing game developed by Mindcraft Software and released in 1990 for the Amiga, MS-DOS, and Commodore 64 platforms. The game is set in the same universe ...

Heart of China is an adventure game that leans heavily into storytelling, weaving a tale of intrigue and danger across exotic locations. The narrative is its strongest asset, pulli...

Might and Magic: Swords of Xeen is something of a curious side chapter in the Xeen saga, originally created as a smaller adventure but still packed with the series’ trademark...

B.A.T. is a cyberpunk-themed adventure game released in 1989 by UBI Soft for various platforms, including Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and later the Commodore 64. It blends adventure, ...

Nuclear War is an abandoned turn-based strategy game designed by Eric Hyman and Jon Van Caneghem. Nuclear War was developed and released by New World Computing in 1989 for Amiga an...

1893: A World's Fair Mystery is an interactive fiction game developed by the American studio Illuminated Lantern and released in 2002. Set during the Chicago World's Columbian Expo...

Subtlety is not in Fire and Forget’s vocabulary. You drive. You shoot. Things explode. That’s the pitch, and the game sticks to it with admirable stubbornness. Released...

Think of Alter Ego: Female Version as life’s greatest hits - and a few of its flops - played out one decision at a time. From childhood tantrums to awkward teenage crushes an...

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...

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...

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat is a combat flight simulation video game released in 1991 by Electronic Arts. The game is named after and endorsed by the real-life aviation legend, Chuck...

Crusaders of the Dark Savant is a sprawling saga with enough content to make your eyes bleed and your fingers cramp. The game blends strategy, exploration, and role-playing with a ...

The final Championship Manager to grace DOS—and what a send-off. Season 97/98 is the fan-favorite for a reason: every transfer, every injury, every last-minute goal feels lik...

The Ancient Art of War is one of those games whose title sounds as though it should be carved into a stone tablet, and its ambition certainly matches the name. Released in 1984, it...

If you ever wanted to run a football club without leaving your chair, The Manager (1991, DOS) delivers. This early management sim lets you buy players, balance budgets, and suffer ...

Crescent is a mysterious blend of action and intrigue set in a pixelated sci-fi world. The plot is sparse, dropped in cryptic hints as you battle your way through hostile landscape...

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...

SimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony is a wonderfully eccentric 1991 simulation that lets players experience life from the perspective of an ant. Rather than building cities or managi...

If Street Rod was a rockabilly rebel, Street Rod 2 (1991, DOS) is its cooler, leather-jacket-wearing cousin. Everything’s bigger, badder, and more polished. The cars roar wit...

Big Red Racing is what happens when you combine arcade mayhem with zero regard for realism and lots of British sarcasm. Drive everything from dump trucks to hovercrafts, insult you...

Alpha Waves is what happens when someone programs a 3D platformer using only triangles and pure imagination. You bounce. That’s it. You bounce through abstract levels that lo...

Cosmic Spacehead is a cheerful point-and-click adventure wrapped in platformer segments, starring a purple alien who’s equal parts explorer and goofball. You’ll travel ...

There was a time when digitized sprites and surprisingly loud crowd noise felt like cutting-edge sports science, and FIFA Soccer 96 proudly lived in that moment. The big selling po...

The spiritual sequel to SimTower, Yoot Tower asks the important question: what if you were god, but only over elevators, sushi bars, and the occasional alien invasion? It’s a...

Zeliard is a fantasy platformer/RPG hybrid that has all the trappings of a classic quest: a brave knight, an evil demon, a princess in distress, and an unreasonable number of bats....