abandonware games sorted by popularity

The Temple of Apshai Trilogy is a series of classic role-playing games developed by Automated Simulations (later known as Epyx) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These games were ...

Strap in and crawl through the mud - Airborne Ranger (1988) is here to chew bubblegum and infiltrate enemy lines. And it's all out of bubblegum. This tactical action game lets you ...

Doh is back, and he’s mad - presumably because no one understood what he was in the first place. Arkanoid 2 takes the original formula and dials everything up: more levels, m...

Robocop 3 is a 1992 DOS action game based on the third Robocop movie, expanding the familiar formula with shooting, platforming, and vehicle-based sequences. Players control the ar...

The adventures of Willy Beamish is a point-and-click adventure that perfectly captures the chaos of being a kid with too much imagination and not enough discipline. Willy is consta...

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne is a turn-based strategy game developed by Triumph Studios and published by Gathering of Developers. It was released in 2002 as a sequel to t...

Ever dreamt of running ancient Rome without the toga chafing? Caesar hands you the reins of a budding province and expects you to not burn it to the ground—ideally. This city...

The Operative: No One Lives Forever is a first-person shooter with stealth gameplay elements, developed by Monolith Productions and released by Fox Interactive in 2000 for Windows,...

Home Alone attempts to capture the chaotic charm of the film, placing you in the shoes of a child defending a house with questionable safety standards. Released in 1991, it mixes s...

Exile: Escape from the Pit, released in 1995, is where the whole strange, subterranean saga begins. You’re exiled—literally—thrown into an underground world and t...

In The Hunt is a side-scrolling shooter that looks like Metal Slug took a deep breath and dove underwater. Released in arcades first and later ported to PC, it’s all about pi...

Queen of Tenshindo 95 is a 1995 Windows game that combines the atmosphere of Japanese fantasy with a distinctly strategic approach to competition and adventure. The title suggests ...

Step into Crazy Nick’s Leisure Suit Larry Casino and leave your wallet safe—only your pride is at stake here. Larry Laffer, king of questionable fashion, hosts a digita...

When in Gaul, punch like the Gauls do. In Asterix and Obelix (1996), you control the iconic French duo on a globetrotting beat-‘em-up adventure that mostly involves sending R...

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 ...

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...

SimEarth is one of Maxis's most ambitious simulations, allowing players to experiment with the development of an entire planet rather than merely a city. Released in 1990, it model...

If you like your RPGs verbose, Betrayal at Krondor is basically a fantasy novel you play. Set in Raymond E. Feist’s Midkemia, the game oozes with narrative depth, detailed ch...

ADOM is what happens when a rogue, a wizard, and a hungry troll walk into a dungeon and never come out. Released in 1996, this roguelike classic is brutal, brilliant, and unapologe...

Sid Meier's Colonization is Civilization’s scrappy, historically charged cousin. You start with a tiny ship and a dream: exploit the New World before the other European power...

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet software for personal computers, and it played a pivotal role in the early history of personal computing. It was developed by Dan Bricklin and Bo...

Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light ver...

Frogger needs very little introduction, yet it still deserves respect. Originally released in 1983, this deceptively simple game asks you to guide a frog across busy roads and trea...

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...

Sid Meier took one look at Earth and said, “Let’s leave this dump.” Thus, Alpha Centauri (1999, Windows XP) was born - a 4X strategy game that takes Civilization ...

Spellcasting 201: The Sorcerer's Appliance is an adventure game released in 1991, developed by Steve Meretzky and published by Legend Entertainment. It’s the second installme...

Before space marines were gritty and everything exploded in brown and grey, there was The Adventures of Captain Comic. This is early PC platforming in all its clunky, jumpy, 4-colo...