abandonware games sorted by popularity

Checkers for Windows is exactly what it says on the tin—checkers. But somehow, it turns this rainy-afternoon classic into a digital duel of patience and spite. No explosions,...

Released in 1982, Deadline is one of Infocom’s classic text adventures, and it doesn’t pull punches. You’re a detective with twelve in-game hours to solve a murde...

Part action-RPG, part body-horror fairy tale, Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall (1995) is the game where you slowly transform into an insect and, somehow, that’s not even the...

Don't Go Alone is the kind of title that doesn’t need a warning label—it’s the warning label. This horror-themed dungeon crawler from 1989 drops you into a world ...

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...

In Knight Games (1988, DOS), the Middle Ages meet joystick warfare. Think of it as a digital renaissance fair with fewer turkey legs and more sword clashing. You can joust, fence, ...

Space Quest 6: Roger Wilco in The Spinal Frontier is the most ambitious—and arguably strangest—entry in the series. Released in 1995, it blends traditional adventure ga...

Lemmings is a classic puzzle-platformer video game developed by DMA Design (now known as Rockstar North) and published by Psygnosis. It was originally released in 1991 for the Amig...

First Samurai is a classic action-platformer game originally released in 1991. The game was initially available on the Amiga and Atari ST, with later ports to the Commodore 64, DOS...

Berlin 1948 throws you into post-war Germany as a secret agent on a noir-flavored mission through a city drenched in trench coats and suspicion. It’s one part spy thriller, o...

Nebulus, also known as Tower Toppler in some regions, is a classic video game released in the 1980s. It was developed by John M. Phillips and published by Hewson Consultants. The g...

Knights of Xentar (1994, DOS) is what happens when anime meets adult humor and forgets to use its filter. This cheeky RPG follows a perverted hero on a quest filled with ridiculous...

If Baldur’s Gate was a sprawling epic, Shadows of Amn is the Shakespearean sequel with better everything: graphics, writing, drama. Your soul is stolen (again), your allies a...

Might and Magic Book One: Secret of the Inner Sanctum is the place where the whole saga begins, and it proudly carries the wild ambition of early computer RPGs. The land of Varn is...

As a prisoner of war, you must find a way to escape a prison in Germany in 1942. The prisoner has a daily routine which will follow if not controlled by the player for a certain am...

ZZT (1991, DOS) looks like it was drawn by an enthusiastic ASCII artist with too much time and not enough colors. And yet, it’s brilliant. Part action game, part puzzle adven...

Double Dragon II: The Revenge (1988) takes everything that made the first game fun and cranks it up a notch. The story begins with tragedy—Marian, the damsel from the first g...

Dick Tracy (1990) tries to turn the classic comic-strip detective into a video game, and the result is equal parts charming and clunky. You’ll chase gangsters, dodge bullets,...

By 1997, Lands of Lore 2: Guardians of Destiny was already pushing the limits of DOS RPGs. It abandons the grid-based movement of its predecessor in favor of full 3D exploration, w...

By the time Lords of Midnight: The Citadel arrived in 1995, it carried the weight of a classic on its shoulders. Rather than reinventing the original, it refines and reinterprets i...

This sequel takes the same D&D-in-space formula and tries to go bigger, bolder, and... okay, maybe just more complicated. Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed continues the galactic strug...

Forget modern physics—Caverns of Kroz lets you destroy walls with whips. Yes, whips. This 1989 ASCII masterpiece from Apogee is part puzzle, part action, and all danger. You ...

DX-Ball 2 is a popular brick-breaking game that was first released in 1998 by Longbow Digital Arts. It serves as a sequel to the original DX-Ball, which was inspired by the classic...

Crystal Caves is a bright, cheerful platformer starring Mylo Steamwitz, an entrepreneur whose business plan involves raiding dangerous alien caves for profit. The levels are full o...