abandonware games sorted by popularity

Then there’s Martian Dreams, the Ultima game where you travel to Mars in the 19th century with none other than Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s as delightfully...

From the mind of Michael Crichton comes Amazon, a game that lets you live out your jungle explorer fantasies—without the bugs or dysentery. You’re off to the Amazon to ...

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...

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...

By 1992, Vol. 3 wrapped up the trilogy with even more complex scenarios. At this point, the series had become less of a game and more of an interactive textbook—though that&r...

SkyGlobe is an astronomy software that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was a DOS-based planetarium program that allowed users to explore the night sky in real-tim...

Qix is a 1989 arcade-style puzzle game built around the strangely satisfying task of claiming territory while avoiding a dangerous moving shape. Players guide a marker across the s...

Released in 1992, _Jill of the Jungle_ introduced players to one of the most memorable heroines of the DOS platforming era. Jill runs, jumps, transforms into animals, and explores ...

Dope Wars is a text-based simulation game that originated as a DOS program in the early 1980s, but gained popularity in its Windows version released in 1998. The game puts players ...

Gobliiins throws you into a puzzle adventure where logic is optional and experimentation is mandatory. You control three goblins, each with their own abilities, and the game deligh...

The Incredible Toon Machine brings the familiar contraption-building formula into a world populated by cartoon characters and considerably less respect for the laws of physics. As ...

Gunship is a landmark helicopter simulation that treats you less like a player and more like a trainee pilot who forgot to read the manual. It demands attention to instrumentation,...

Powermonger takes the god-game formula of Populous and gives it teeth. Instead of playing benevolent deity, you’re more like a slightly cranky warlord, sending little soldier...

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...

Before Football Manager made spreadsheets cool, there was Bundesliga Manager Professional, a game where managing a German football team involved more math than actual football. You...

Move aside, Jurassic Park—Dinopark Tycoon (1993, DOS) gave kids everywhere the chance to run their very own dinosaur zoo without the risk of being eaten alive. This education...

In Infidel, you play a not-so-noble adventurer whose moral compass is spinning like a broken ceiling fan. As a treasure-hungry explorer poking around an ancient Egyptian tomb, you ...

Metal Mutant offers an imaginative action adventure built around a shape-shifting robot capable of transforming into different forms. Each form provides unique abilities, making ex...

The Crack of Doom is an old-school adventure with a title that sounds considerably more dramatic than the average Tuesday afternoon, and the game does its best to live up to it. Ex...

Tristan Pinball is a digital pinball table from an era when computer hardware was expected to imitate a real arcade machine despite having considerably fewer pixels and absolutely ...

You’ve never really lived until you’ve watched a rook pick up a pawn and slam dunk it into the floor. Battle Chess (1988) turns the world’s most intellectual boar...

ShadowCaster is a 1993 DOS first-person action RPG that blends fantasy, exploration, and combat in a world where the player can transform into different magical creatures. Each for...

In Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Sierra took the Wild West and decided it needed more jokes, more puns, and significantly more medical malpractice. Released in 1993, this po...

If Sorcerer Lord was about controlling armies, Sorcerian (1990, DOS) zooms in to the party level — a side-scrolling RPG that’s as odd as it is ambitious. You build a te...

Fast Food Tycoon turns the humble hamburger restaurant into a full management challenge. You must choose locations, design your business, manage staff, handle finances, and keep cu...

James Clavell's Shogun, a text adventure game developed by Infocom and released in 1989. Infocom was known for its interactive fiction games, and "James Clavell's Shogun" was one o...

If nostalgia had a soundtrack, it might be Blur’s “Song 2,” forever tied to FIFA: Road to World Cup 98. This was the entry where the series suddenly felt cool, co...

Rambo First Blood Part 2 is a 1985 action game based on the film sequel and one of the earlier attempts to bring the famous soldier's adventures to home computers. Players control ...

Constructor is a simulation and strategy video game developed by System 3 and first released in 1997. In the game, players take on the role of a property developer with the goal of...