abandonware games sorted by popularity

Contra: Locked and Loaded is like caffeine in video game form—fast, explosive, and just a little dangerous for your health. You’re running, you’re gunning, and yo...

Dark Ages Volume III: Dungeons of Doom closes out the trilogy with—you guessed it—more doom, dungeons, and ways to fall off platforms you swear you landed on. The serie...

If you ever wondered what driving a luxury sports car felt like in the late 80s, Test Drive delivers that fantasy with all the pixelated swagger you could ask for. This pioneering ...

Ultimate DOOM is an expanded version of the original DOOM (1993), developed by id Software and released in 1995. It includes all three original episodes of DOOM along with a brand-...

Supremacy: You Will Be Done (also known simply as Overlord) is a rare example of mix between real-time strategy and science fiction themed 4X game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploid, eXterm...

Galdregon's Domain drops players into a fantasy world that feels like it was stitched together from dungeon maps, spellbooks, and a suspiciously large number of monsters. The premi...

One of the best licensed games of the '90s, Blade Runner (1997) puts you in the rain-soaked shoes of Ray McCoy, a detective tracking down replicants in a world where it's always ni...

If Dizzy was an egg on an adventure, Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk turns that concept up a notch with a proper fairytale plot. Released in 1993 for DOS, the game sees Dizzy set out...

Explosions? Check. Missiles? Check. Graphics that look like someone spilled gray soup on your monitor? Double check. A-10 Tank Killer lets you pilot a flying war machine and rain c...

If you ever wanted to play a point-and-click adventure where the protagonists have the combined IQ of a slice of cheese, Beavis and Butt-Head in Virtual Stupidity is your masterpie...

Grim Fandango is an adventure game developed and published by LucasArts. It was released in 1998 and is known for its unique setting and distinctive art style. The game was directe...

Before Command & Conquer, there was Command HQ (1990, DOS/Mac)—an early RTS that said “what if we made World War III playable?” It’s global domination m...

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe is a combat flight simulation game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games (later known as LucasArts) in 1991. It was designed for MS-DOS systems...

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is a software development tool that enables users to create point-and-click adventure games. It was originally created by Chris Jones and has been used ...

Part strategy, part slapstick cartoon, North and South makes the American Civil War look like a Saturday morning show. You juggle troop movements, train robberies, and spontaneous ...

Xenon 2000: Project PCF is a vertical-scrolling shoot 'em up video game and originally released in 2000. It is a sequel to the earlier game "Xenon 2: Megablast," which was develope...

King’s Bounty is a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, originally released in 1990 by New World Computing. It was created by Jon Van Caneghem, also known for the Migh...

Scorched 3D is a free and open-source artillery game that serves as a modern adaptation of the classic MS-DOS game Scorched Earth. Developed by Gavin Camp, it was first released in...

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,...

Also known as Puzzle Bobble, this bubble-popping classic stars those cute dragons from Bubble Bobble, now in competitive puzzle mode. Match three colors, clear the screen, panic as...

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...

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...

If Speedball was a fistfight on skates, Speedball 2 is a televised riot with endorsements. More teams, more power-ups, more everything. The game’s slogan might as well be &ld...