abandonware games sorted by popularity

HeroQuest is a classic video game adaptation of the popular board game HeroQuest, released in 1991 by Gremlin Interactive. HeroQuest faithfully recreates the turn-based, ...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Wasteland is the kind of game that quietly changed history while pretending to be just another post-apocalyptic RPG. Long before wastelands were fashionab...

Bigger, darker, and just as merciless, Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep doubled down on everything that made the first game great—and slightly unhinged. Released in...

Stunt Car Racer is an abandoned first-person 3D perspective racing game designed by Geoffrey J. Crammond, developed and released by Microstyle in 1989 for DOS and many other platfo...

Elona looks innocent, almost cute, and then immediately proves it has no interest in your comfort. This roguelike RPG is bizarre, unpredictable, and gleefully cruel. You can become...

Take Eddie Murphy’s swagger, remove the charm, add some DOS chiptunes, and you get Beverly Hills Cop—a game adaptation that asks: “What if being a wisecracking de...

In 1987, Driller arrived as a revolutionary 3D game that looked light-years ahead of its time. Using the Freescape engine, it let players explore a fully 3D world—on a DOS ma...

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a graphical point and click adventure game created by LucasArts and published in 1992, based on the popular movie character. As the famous...

Doh is back, and he’s mad - presumably because no one understood what he was in the first place. Arkanoid 2 takes the original formula and dials everything up: more levels, m...

F-15 Strike Eagle II takes everything that made the original a classic and cranks it up like a jet engine at full throttle. The visuals are sharper, the missions are more varied, a...

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...

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 ...

Another World (1991) is a cinematic platformer with big ideas, minimal UI, and a shocking willingness to let you die within five seconds of starting. You play as a scientist who ge...

In Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes, the stakes go from “oops, stranded on Mars” to “uh-oh, Earth is doomed.” The Vorticons have planted death lasers in...

In Curse of Enchantia, a young boy is whisked away to a magical world full of bizarre creatures, tricky puzzles, and an alarming number of ways to die. The game’s whimsical a...

A Night with Troi (1991) sounds like a fan fiction gone too far - and, well, that’s pretty much what it is. It’s a DOS-based “adventure” in the loosest sens...

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 your childhood involved model trains and elaborate setups that your cat kept destroying, 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown is digital therapy. Released in 2000 for Windows XP, it mixes ...

Castles 2 took everything the first game did and cranked it up with actual diplomacy, espionage, and conquest mechanics. Now you’re not just stacking bricks—you’r...

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...

Before Keen went full-on galactic hero, he had a Keen Dreams. Literally. This midquel drops him in a dreamscape ruled by King Boobus Tuber (yes, really), where vegetables are evil ...

A Personal Nightmare (1989) blends horror and detective work into one spooky little cocktail of 1980s DOS game design. You return to your hometown to find it overrun by demonic pos...