abandonware games sorted by popularity

In King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne, King Graham trades royal paperwork for a perilous journey to find the woman destined to become his queen. The adventure expands upon its p...

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...

King's Quest III: To Heir is Human takes an unexpected turn by casting players as Gwydion, a servant trapped under the watchful eye of an evil wizard. Escaping requires careful pla...

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...

Elvira 2: The Jaws of Cerberus doubles down on everything that made the first game memorable: horror, humor, and puzzles that seem designed to mock you. Elvira herself steals the s...

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...

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...

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?...

In Strahd’s Possession, you’re tossed into the mists of Barovia, where Count Strahd—smooth, sinister, and eternally well-groomed—looms over everything. The ...

The Sentinel is one of those games that seems simple for about five minutes, right up until you realize the entire landscape is part of the puzzle. You control a Synthoid moving ac...

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...

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...

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 ...

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is a landmark open-world RPG that drops players into the strange island of Vvardenfell, a place filled with volcanic landscapes, ancient ruins, pol...

AutoCAD 2.5 represents an important stage in the development of computer-aided design software, arriving when personal computers were beginning to become genuinely useful for techn...

Lemmings 95, released for Windows in 1994, packages the classic puzzle experience with updated presentation while preserving everything that made the original games so addictive. H...

Mixed-up Fairy Tales takes the familiar world of classic fairy tales and gives it a playful shake, scattering characters, objects, and stories into a wonderfully confused adventure...

Released in 1994, Magic Carpet is one of those rare games that feels like someone mixed a fantasy novel with a flight simulator and then added enough explosions to keep everyone ha...

Eishockey Manager is proof that spreadsheets can, in fact, be thrilling—if you really love ice hockey. Released in 1993, this is a hardcore management sim that skips the flas...

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of the many adaptations of the Terminator franchise. This one is based on the movie of the same name, but it's not as good as the movie, according...

Shadow President is a 1993 DOS strategy game that places players in the Oval Office with an uncomfortable amount of responsibility. You must manage the United States, deal with int...

3-Demon from 1983 is basically Pac-Man with a taste for LSD. You’re in a first-person maze, munching dots while glowing ghosts try to ruin your day. It’s surprisingly c...

TV Sports: Boxing takes the sweet science and wraps it in a layer of showmanship that feels straight out of a late-night sports broadcast. Released in 1991, it emphasizes spectacle...

Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain recreates the aerial combat of the Battle of Britain, giving players the chance to fly famous aircraft and participate in one of World War ...

Indiana Jones: Revenge of the Ancients from 1987 is one of those curious side stories that feels like it emerged from a parallel cinematic universe. Presented as a text-heavy adven...

Norton Commander was a file manager and editor application released by Peter Norton Computing for DOS. Norton Commander used a text-based user interface with side-by-side pane...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a famously peculiar interactive fiction adventure based on Douglas Adams's equally peculiar science-fiction comedy. Playing it is less about...

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, ...

Steel Panthers is the kind of strategy game that looks innocent for about five minutes, then suddenly has you worrying about armor thickness, firing angles, ammunition and whether ...

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 1993 and designed by Jane Jensen. The game is ...