abandonware games sorted by popularity

Menace is a classic shoot 'em up video game that was developed by DMA Design, a company later known as Rockstar North, and initially released in 1988. The game was originally relea...

Mix one part turn-based strategy, one part fantasy novel, add a dash of dragon, and you get Age of Wonders (1999). This is the game where wizards rule, elves sulk in forests, and y...

MechWarrior (1989) was one of the first games to put players inside a 3D cockpit of a giant mech, but it wasn’t just a combat game, it was also an open-ended mercenary RPG, w...

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...

BloodNet combines vampires, cyberspace, and noir in a cocktail so strange it probably shouldn’t work but somehow does. You are a hacker who just got bitten by a vampire and n...

Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. It is the sixth installment in the Leisure Suit Larry series and was rel...

After the success of Ultima 6: The False Prophet, Origin decided to "create worlds" not part of the popular Ultima series (strictly speaking) using the same engine of Ultima 6. The...

If you’ve ever thought, “What if Pac-Man got lost in a modernist art gallery?”, then A-Maze is your oddly specific dream come true. Released in 1989 for DOS, this...

Before there was Baldur’s Gate or Skyrim, there was DND. This 1984 DOS dungeon crawler is as old-school as it gets, complete with ASCII graphics, endless hallways, and monste...

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is a role-playing video game that was first released in 1981. It's one of the pioneering titles in the dungeon-crawling genre and one ...

Karadoc’s back, and apparently inflation hit the dungeon economy hard—he wants his gold! Cadaver: The Payoff is less a sequel and more a direct continuation, like findi...

Step into Crazy Nick’s Leisure Suit Larry Casino and leave your wallet safe—only your pride is at stake here. Larry Laffer, king of questionable fashion, hosts a digita...

Gunship 2000 takes the foundation of its predecessor and adds polish, options, and a broader strategic scope. You’re not just flying missions; you’re shaping campaigns,...

Conflict is a turn-based war game where you get to play Commander-in-Chief and yell at your virtual generals when things go wrong (which they often do). It's part military sim, par...

WordStar 4 was a popular word processing software program during the early days of personal computing. WordStar 4 included features typical of word processors in that era, all...

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...

In Knight Games (1988, DOS), the Middle Ages meet joystick warfare. Think of it as a digital renaissance fair with fewer turkey legs and more sword clashing. You can joust, fence, ...

If you ever wanted to explore endless, procedurally generated tunnels filled with monsters, traps, and the occasional existential crisis, Dungeon Crawl is your kind of misery. Rele...

The classic bomb-defusing, platform-hopping, enemy-dodging chaos of Bomb Jack gets a fresh coat of pixels in this 2002 DOS remake. You’re still the tiny superhero hopping aro...

Supaplex is a classic puzzle game released in 1991 by Think!Ware Development for MS-DOS and Amiga. It is heavily inspired by Boulder Dash but introduces more complex mechanics.&nbs...

Just when you thought Keen could catch a break, Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle drops him into a mystical realm full of bouncing jelly beans and sentient toasters. This is w...

SLASH'EM (Super Lotsa Added Stuff Hack - Extended Magic) is a roguelike game based on NetHack, one of the most famous dungeon-crawling games of all time. It expands upon NetHack 3....

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...

Ah, 2400 A.D. A game where you can rebel against a robot police state… by slowly walking around in beige. Released in 1988, it’s what happens when you mix Orwellian dy...

Released in 1994, All New World of Lemmings gives our suicidal little friends a new lease on life... and new outfits! The puzzles are tougher, the graphics are cleaner, and the fru...