abandonware games sorted by popularity

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat is a combat flight simulation video game released in 1991 by Electronic Arts. The game is named after and endorsed by the real-life aviation legend, Chuck...

By 1994, the Ishar series decided subtlety was overrated. Ishar 3 is bigger, bolder, and occasionally more confusing than its predecessors. Your party once again explores vast land...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a humorous free text adventure game based on the novel of the same name written by Douglas Adams (if you never read it, shame on you!). The ...

Ah, Dizzy—the little egg that could. Released in 1987, this puzzle-platformer puts you in the delicate shell of an egg who somehow manages to roll, jump, and carry objects wi...

Released in 1989, Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs is pure old-school sports gaming: simple to learn, hard to master, and endlessly competitive. The presentation is minimal,...

Let’s be honest—Centerfold Squares (1988) is what happened when someone asked, “What if Qix but hornier?” You draw squares to reveal pixelated images of... ...

BloodNet combines vampires, cyberspace, and noir in a cocktail so strange it probably shouldn’t work but somehow does. You are a hacker who just got bitten by a vampire and n...

Take American football, remove the rules, add swords and fireballs, and throw in some screaming. That is Brutal Sports Football. This is not about touchdowns. This is about surviva...

If you’ve ever wanted to play interstellar Monopoly while arguing with alien neighbors, Deadlock: Planetary Conquest is your ticket. Released in 1996, this strategy gem tosse...

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 ...

SimTown is a city-building simulation game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It was released in 1995 as a spin-off of the immensely popular SimCity series. Unlik...

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...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) is an arcade game released in 1989 by Konami. It is based on the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. The game was initially released...

By the time Ultima 9 rolled around, expectations were sky-high—and the result was… divisive. It looked gorgeous for 1999, with sweeping 3D landscapes and dramatic voic...

Horror Zombies from the Crypt is a platform game released in 1990 by Millennium Interactive for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS platforms. The game is heavily inspired by 1950s hor...

Released in 1989, Ghostbusters 2 gives you another shot at wrangling ectoplasm with the world’s most overqualified exterminators. Inspired by the movie sequel, it’s equ...

In the 25th century, bureaucracy is still awful—but now you also have laser guns. Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday is a surprisingly solid sci-fi RPG that blends space oper...

Turbo Pascal 7 (TP7) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed by Borland as an ev...