abandonware games sorted by popularity

You don’t need to hate spiders to fear Arachnophobia (1991), but it helps. Based on the movie of the same name, it tasks you with exterminating wave after wave of creepy craw...

Dungeon Keeper 3: War for the Overworld is the ghost of a game that never was. Announced, teased, and then buried alive by shifting studio priorities, it exists only in the fever d...

Ah yes, Blood (1997)—the cheerful little game where you rise from the grave, wield a pitchfork, and quote evil-sounding movie lines while setting cultists on fire. It’s...

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988) takes everything that made the first game fun and cranks it up a notch. The story begins with tragedy—Marian, the damsel from the first g...

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...

Welcome to the squared circle of wireframe pain. Released in 1991 for DOS, this game puts you in the gloves of a boxer rendered entirely out of jagged geometry. The animation was r...

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...

Released later in 1992, _Jill of the Jungle 3: Jill Saves the Prince_ completes the trilogy with another energetic platforming adventure. This time the story reverses traditional f...

Before immersive sims were a buzzword, there was Ultima Underworld. Dropping you into a massive first-person dungeon, it gave players freedom unthinkable at the time. Want to negot...

The California Raisins is a wonderfully strange DOS game based on the famous claymation fruit characters who somehow became pop-culture celebrities in the 1980s. Released in 1988, ...

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...

Space exploration reaches impressive heights in Master of Orion, a strategy classic that challenges players to guide an interstellar civilization toward galactic supremacy. Coloniz...

Pool of Radiance is a 1988 role-playing classic based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons universe, bringing tabletop fantasy adventures to the computer screen. Players create a par...

If you ever wanted to fly a helicopter that looks like it belongs in a Michael Bay fever dream, Comanche: Maximum Overkill (1992, DOS) is for you. This voxel-powered beast puts you...

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...

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is one of the great comedy adventures, combining clever puzzles, unforgettable characters, and writing sharp enough to cut through a pirate ship'...

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 ...

If you ever wanted to feel like you were trapped in a washing machine armed with lasers, Descent is your game. Released in 1995, this claustrophobic, six-degrees-of-freedom shooter...

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...

Black Tiger is a side-scrolling action game packed with monsters, treasure and enough medieval violence to make a quiet afternoon in the countryside seem considerably less attracti...

Theme Park turns amusement-park management into a colorful strategy game where every roller coaster, burger stand and souvenir shop can become part of your grand financial empire. ...

Released in 1991, Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti does a Llittle Undercover Work cleverly reconnects storylines while introducing another globe-trotting mystery filled with ...

Midtown Madness turns the streets of Chicago into one enormous playground for chaotic driving, where racing is only one of several excellent excuses to ignore traffic laws. Players...

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...

Supremacy: Your Will Be Done is a grand strategy game with a suitably enormous ambition: conquer space, expand your empire, manage resources, and generally become the sort of inter...

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, ...

Released in 1989, Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs is pure old-school sports gaming: simple to learn, hard to master, and endlessly competitive. The presentation is minimal,...

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....

In 1998, Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War decided the world needed fewer corridors and more cosmic dogfights. Instead of bumping into walls like a drunken astronaut, you&rs...

Hostage: Rescue Mission puts you in a high-stakes situation where planning and precision matter far more than reflexes. Released in 1989, it blends strategy with action, asking you...