abandonware games sorted by popularity

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 ...

If you’ve ever wanted to fly a jet fighter at Mach “Oh no, I crashed again,” After Burner is the game for you. This 1989 DOS classic straps you into an F-14 and l...

A Line in the Sand (1992) is what happens when a board game about modern Middle Eastern warfare gets turned into a DOS strategy title with all the subtlety of a cold war memo. You ...

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is a role-playing video game that was first released in 1981. It's one of the pioneering titles in the dungeon-crawling genre and one ...

By the time Premier Manager 3 rolled around, the series had cemented its reputation as the thinking fan’s football fix. Released in 1994, it refined the formula once again, o...

Warheads is a turn-based artillery game in the grand tradition of blowing your friends to pieces with ridiculous weapons. You control a team of tiny, heavily armed soldiers and tak...

Phantasie 3: The Wrath of Nikademus continues the fantasy role-playing series with a larger adventure, stronger enemies, and an even greater challenge for returning heroes. Players...

Released in 1988, Leisure Suit Larry 2: Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) sends Larry into an increasingly outrageous international adventure filled with spies, tropi...

The Cardinal of the Kremlin is an abandoned simulation game involving espionage, politics and govern management set in the cold war years. It was designed by Kenneth Rothschil...

Imagine Doom and Ultima Underworld had a low-budget child who was homeschooled in a basement filled with Mountain Dew cans. That’s Amulets & Armor. A mix of first-person ...

Hacker 2: The Doomsday Papers doubles down on everything the original attempted, raising the stakes from “interesting breach of security” to “global catastrophe.&...

Castle of Dr. Brain is a puzzle lover’s fever dream. It’s like someone crammed a Mensa test into a haunted house and added robot arms. You’re solving logic grids,...

As its title boldly suggests, Late Night Sexy TV Show arrived in 1994 as an adult-themed trivia and quiz game that relies more on playful humor than genuine scandal. Players answer...

Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? is an educational computer game and television game show franchise created by Broderbund. It focuses on teaching geography and history while playe...

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...

In 1989, Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals expanded the series by allowing players to control both Larry and the capable Passionate Patti...

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...

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is a strange but fascinating blend of adventure game, RPG, and comedy horror. You wander through a spooky mansion, solve puzzles, fight monsters, and g...

Released in 1991, Eye of the Beholder brought classic dungeon crawling into the digital age with style and confidence. Set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, it delivers grid-...

In Ancients 1: Deathwatch, you gather your pixelated party and set off to cleanse a city of evil, or at least try not to get mugged by slimes. It's a dungeon crawler in classic DOS...

Hardball 4 arrives with the kind of confidence that suggests it has been paying attention to feedback, and it shows. The game offers more options, better visuals, and a deeper sens...

Ace of Aces (1987, DOS) is a game where you pilot a WWII plane via a series of still-image panels that suggest action more than deliver it. It’s like a flipbook with ambition...

Part puzzle, part platformer, part “what is even happening,” Bombuzal (1989, DOS) is a game where your job is to blow up every bomb on the screen—while not accide...

King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder represented a major leap forward for Sierra, introducing hand-painted visuals, a point-and-click interface, and full voice acting ...

Few games deserve the title of “classic” more than Day of the Tentacle (1993). It’s Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman at their weirdest, giving us time travel, mutant...