abandonware games sorted by popularity

In Search of Dr. Riptide from 1994 is a science-fiction adventure with enough eccentricity to fill several galaxies. Players investigate mysteries, solve puzzles, and generally que...

Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol is a deep dungeon-crawling role-playing game designed for players who enjoy building powerful characters one dangerous expedition at a time. The under...

Nebulus, also known as Tower Toppler in some regions, is a classic video game released in the 1980s. It was developed by John M. Phillips and published by Hewson Consultants. The g...

Formula One (1994) approaches racing with a slightly more accessible grin than its stern predecessors. It still wants you to care about apexes and braking zones, but it’s hap...

BattleTech: The Crescent Hawks' Revenge is a turn-based strategy game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Infocom in 1990. It is the sequel to "Crescent Hawk's I...

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...

Elite Plus takes everything intimidating about Elite and polishes it just enough to feel slightly less hostile. The visuals are improved, the interface smoother, but the soul remai...

In Space Quest 1: The Sarien Encounter, the galaxy’s least qualified hero, Roger Wilco, begins his long tradition of surviving disasters mostly by accident. Released in 1986,...

Italicized title: Jack the Ripper. Blending mystery, historical intrigue, and adventure gameplay, this title places players in Victorian London during one of history’s most i...

Forget Freddy’s razor glove for a second - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989) for DOS is terrifying in its own way. Mostly because of the controls. You play as a teen trying to...

Operation Wolf is a 1989 arcade-style military shooter that puts the player directly into the middle of a dangerous rescue mission. The objective is simple enough: shoot enemies, p...

The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate is the third and final installment in the original The Bard’s Tale trilogy, developed by Interplay and published by Electronic Arts i...

In The Tyrants of Thaine, the graphics get a modest upgrade, but the soul remains pure: this is RPG comfort food. You’re once again cast as the world's most overworked advent...

With Gary Grigsby’s War in Russia, the scale somehow gets even bigger, and the margin for error even smaller. This is strategy at its most unforgiving, where moving a unit on...

Released in 1992, Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 abandons pure text in favor of colorful point-and-click adventure gameplay while preserving the outrageous humor that made its prede...

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...

Before James Bond was saving the world with cinematic flair, he was crashing pixelated helicopters in 007: License to Kill. This top-down action game takes the movie and crams it i...

Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures is a charmingly odd experiment that shrinks globe-trotting archaeology into bite-sized missions designed for quick play sessions. Viewed fr...

Released in 1988, Dream Zone was a surreal adventure where you explore your own subconscious after being sucked into a dream machine. It’s colorful, strange, and often unsett...

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is where Blizzard’s legendary fantasy saga began. This real-time strategy classic pits humans against orcs in a battle for control of a war-torn wor...

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...

Borland Turbo Basic was a programming language developed by Borland, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Turbo Basic was part of the Turbo series of progr...

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...