abandonware games sorted by popularity

ARJ is a file compression utility and file format created by Robert K. Jung. The name "ARJ" stands for "Archived by Robert Jung." It was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a compression tool for MS-DOS and other systems....

Hired Guns is an abandoned game developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis in 1993 for DOS and Amiga platforms. Hired Guns is a sci-fi RPG in which you control four mercenaries in four individual simultaneous first person ...

Take the tactical seriousness of Championship Manager and sprinkle on some espresso. Championship Manager Italia gives you control over Italy’s finest (and most temperamental) clubs. Manage egos, battle Juventus, and try not...

Released in 2000, Dark Reign 2 took the futuristic RTS series into full 3D territory. While other games were content with flashy visuals, this one focused on tactical depth and resource management. You control factions fighting ov...

If you've ever dreamed of throwing darts, arm wrestling, or playing a sleazy round of "Last Call Larry" without actually smelling like stale beer, Bar Games is your digital dive bar. Released in 1989, it’s a collection of mi...

One of the best licensed games of the '90s, Blade Runner (1997) puts you in the rain-soaked shoes of Ray McCoy, a detective tracking down replicants in a world where it's always night and nobody smiles. It’s not just point-a...

Syndicate Wars is the sequel to the much acclaimed Syndicate developed by Bullfrog in its golden years. Like its predecessor, Syndicate Wars is a real-time tactics strategy game set in a cyberpunk dystopian world involving excessi...

Afterlife is a simulation strategy game developed and published by LucasArts. It was released in 1996 for Microsoft Windows and later made available on other platforms. The game was designed by Michael Stemmle and was known for it...

Before Doom, there was Catacomb Abyss, where you throw fireballs down corridors at zombies who all apparently graduated from the same school of slow shuffling. It's a first-person shooter without the “shooter” part&mda...

Aldo’s Adventure is what you get when someone squints at Donkey Kong and decides to remake it after four cups of coffee and a long nap. You play Aldo, a brave little guy whose hobbies include climbing platforms, dodging haza...

Master of Magic is a turn based 4x strategy game developed by SimTex and published by the well know Microprose, very similar to Civilization, with a fantasy twist. You play as a wizard and your objective is to evolve your race fro...

Then there’s Martian Dreams, the Ultima game where you travel to Mars in the 19th century with none other than Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s as delightfully bizarre as it sounds. Instead of Britannia, you&r...

Aces of the Pacific (1992, DOS) takes to the skies over WWII’s Pacific Theater, where you can dogfight in legendary aircraft and prove your piloting prowess — or spin into the sea with style. The graphics are dated, bu...

Back in 1990, Legend of Faerghail was what you played if you wanted a role-playing experience both grand and slightly unforgiving. A German-developed RPG, it combined dungeon crawling, turn-based combat, and an atmosphere thick en...

Before its sequel, there was Dark Reign: The Future of War (1997), a forward-thinking RTS that introduced mechanics ahead of its time, like customizable AI scripts for units. The result was a game that demanded brains as much as r...

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 survival. Players can be decapitated, the ball can explod...

Life & Death is a medical simulation game developed by Software Toolworks and released in 1988 for MS-DOS computers. It aimed to provide players with a realistic simulation of the life of a surgeon. The game puts players in th...

Lemmings 2: The Tribes is an abandoned puzzle game part of the acclaimed Lemmings series. It was developed by DMA Design and released by Psygnosis in 1993. Lemmings 2: The Tribes runs on DOS but was also published for Acorn, Amiga...

War in Middle-earth is a real-time strategy game developed by Synergistic Software and published by Melbourne House. It was released in 1988 for various platforms including the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC.The game i...

If Sorcerer Lord was about controlling armies, Sorcerian (1990, DOS) zooms in to the party level — a side-scrolling RPG that’s as odd as it is ambitious. You build a team of heroes, pick quests, and age over time, lite...