abandonware games sorted by popularity

SimTower turns building management into a surprisingly addictive simulation in which players construct and operate a huge vertical complex. Instead of spreading a city across a map...

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...

Operation Stealth is a 1990 adventure game that combines international intrigue, espionage, and the sort of dangerous missions where the protagonist probably should have taken a qu...

This 1996 point-and-click western is what you’d get if Lucky Luke and Monkey Island had an awkward but lovable baby. 3 Skulls of the Toltecs throws you into a spaghetti weste...

Time travel stories tend to get complicated quickly, and Future Wars: Adventures in Time embraces that chaos with enthusiasm. Released in 1990, this cinematic adventure casts you a...

Sports management usually involves tactics, budgets, and serious planning. M.U.D.S. - Mean Ugly Dirty Sport decides those are merely optional suggestions. This delightfully outrage...

When in Gaul, punch like the Gauls do. In Asterix and Obelix (1996), you control the iconic French duo on a globetrotting beat-‘em-up adventure that mostly involves sending R...

Indianapolis 500 in 1989 was one of the earliest racing simulators to take itself very seriously, and that seriousness paid off. Rather than arcade thrills, it focused on realism, ...

So you think you're ready to storm Normandy? Think again. 101: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy drops you into the chaos of World War II with all the grace of a paratrooper landin...

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...

Go Simulator is a 1991 DOS adaptation of the ancient board game Go, proving once again that computers were perfectly happy to turn extremely old human pastimes into extremely serio...

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...

NetHack is one of the great survivors of computer gaming, a 1987 roguelike that has been challenging players for decades with randomly generated dungeons, brutal enemies, complex s...

Escape from Hell asks the important question: what if escaping the underworld were less Dante and more sarcastic road trip? You descend into a demon-infested landscape armed with d...

Released in 1984, Hack is one of those games that quietly shaped an entire genre while pretending not to care if you understood it or not. This early roguelike doesn’t bother...

Plan 9 From Outer Space is a 1992 adventure game inspired by the famously strange science-fiction film of the same name. The game embraces the bizarre atmosphere of its source mate...

The Amazing Spider-Man is a side-scrolling action game developed by Oxford Digital Enterprises and published by Paragon Software for MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST. The plot revolves ...

Think Indiana Jones meets 90s daytime TV. Amazon: Guardians of Eden is a cinematic point-and-click adventure filled with jungles, conspiracies, and more hair gel than any explorer ...

Aleshar: World of Ice is what happens when someone says, “Let’s make an RPG, but crank the realism to 11.” Set in a cold, brutal land where your sword arm is only...

Released in 1995, Psycho Pinball is what happens when traditional pinball eats too much sugar and loses its mind. It’s loud, colorful, and gleefully unhinged, with four disti...

Before Doomguy started ripping and tearing, there was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. A stealth game where sneaking is mandatory, disguises are fashionable, and stabbing Nazis is encour...

Released in 1993, Jurassic Park allows players to experience the dangers of a dinosaur-filled island without the inconvenience of signing legal waivers. Based on the blockbuster fi...

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?...

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...

Arkanoid: Doh It Again revisits the classic brick-breaking formula with the familiar paddle, ball and increasingly fragile-looking collection of blocks. The objective remains wonde...

Murders in Space takes detective fiction beyond Earth, placing players in a futuristic setting where solving a murder requires investigating an environment with rather fewer conven...

Rush'n Attack is a 1989 DOS adaptation of Konami's fast-paced side-scrolling action game, sending players into enemy territory armed with a knife and an impressive willingness to r...

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...

Wrath of the Demon is a fantasy action game that clearly believes subtlety is overrated. You play a warrior battling through a hostile world packed with monsters, traps and enemies...

Often mistaken as a Dig Dug clone, Digger is more like its eccentric cousin who insists on bringing a disco soundtrack to every family gathering. Released in 1983 for DOS, it combi...