abandonware games sorted by popularity

Trolls is a colourful platform adventure that puts you in control of a small hero travelling through a succession of whimsical environments. The game is built around classic platfo...

GW-BASIC (short for Gee Whiz BASIC) is a dialect of the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft. It's one of the early implementations of BASIC and was included ...

Released in 1988, Life & Death offers an unusually serious medical simulation where players assume the role of a surgeon responsible for diagnosing illnesses and performing delicat...

Dive, dive! This 1989 DOS simulator puts you in control of a nuclear submarine, though most of the action involves pushing buttons and waiting very patiently. Think of it as the &l...

There was a time when digitized sprites and surprisingly loud crowd noise felt like cutting-edge sports science, and FIFA Soccer 96 proudly lived in that moment. The big selling po...

Wipeout is a futuristic racing game built around speed, aggressive competition, and vehicles that apparently have no interest whatsoever in ordinary road safety. The anti-gravity c...

EcoQuest 2 takes its environmental message seriously but packages it in a way that’s engaging rather than preachy. You explore lush rainforest environments, solving puzzles t...

A sequel to 25th Anniversary, Star Trek: Judgment Rites (1993, DOS) is peak interactive Trek. The storytelling is sharper, the graphics improved, and the voice acting — yes, ...

Hercules brings mythological heroism into the late 90s with the kind of enthusiasm that only that era could produce. It mixes action and platforming in a way that occasionally feel...

Galaxian is one of those early arcade classics that proved space shooters didn’t need complicated rules to be thrilling. Instead of aliens politely marching in formation, the...

Imagine Doom got abducted by aliens, experimented on, and sent back to Earth with a case of amnesia. That’s Alien Cabal (1997). It’s a weird mix of FPS action and X-Fil...

Ecstatica is a haunting anomaly in the DOS library, blending early 3D visuals with a dark fairy-tale atmosphere. Its polygonal characters may look crude by modern standards, but th...

In Jones in the Fast Lane, success is measured not by defeating monsters or saving kingdoms, but by surviving everyday life. Released in 1991, this unusual board game simulation ha...

Commander Keen 1: Marooned on Mars is a platform video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1990 as shareware for MS-DOS. The game follows the adv...

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 ...

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?...

Long before Minecraft let us build worlds, Adventure Construction Set handed you a digital Lego box and said, “Go nuts.” Want to make a dungeon full of orcs and ham san...

Master of Magic remains one of the finest fantasy strategy games ever created, blending empire building with spellcasting in a world where powerful wizards compete for absolute dom...

As sequels go, Serpent Isle is less “more of the same” and more “everything is different, good luck.” Shipwrecked on a strange new land, you’ll deal w...

Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound was an unreleased role-playing video game that was intended to be the sequel to the critically acclaimed Baldur's Gate series. It was initially a...

Time Slaughter is a fighting game that embraces the wonderfully excessive attitude of 1990s arcade combat. Its roster of bizarre characters is more interested in beating each other...

American McGee's Alice takes Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and gives it a decidedly darker makeover. Alice is no longer simply wandering through a whimsical fantasy populated by eccen...

PGA Tour Golf is a 1990 golf simulation that brings the famous sport to the computer with a focus on accuracy, strategy, and careful planning. Players can compete on realistic cour...

If you ever wanted to play a video game that doubles as a philosophical think piece, A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) is your ride. Released for DOS and Macintosh, this is one of Inf...

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a grumpy bearded guy swinging an axe and saving the world before second breakfast, Bloodstone: an Epic Dwarven Tale is your jam. Released in 1...

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...

Strip Poker 2 takes the familiar poker format and adds the particular incentive suggested by its title. Beneath the novelty, however, there is still a straightforward card game bas...

Before Half-Life, there was Chasm: The Rift, a game where time-traveling mutants explode into limbs and every room looks like it was decorated by a doom-metal band. A first-person ...

The Great Giana Sisters is a colorful platformer that became famous for wearing its Mario-like influences rather boldly, while still developing its own distinctive personality. The...

Dreamweb (1994) went full dark cyberpunk, and it didn’t pull its punches. You play Ryan, a man convinced he’s on a mission from mysterious forces to kill seven people w...