abandonware games sorted by popularity

CivNet is a multiplayer adaptation of the original Sid Meier's Civilization game, released in 1995. It was developed and published by MicroProse for MS-DOS and Windows. This versio...

Imagine Doom got abducted by aliens, experimented on, and sent back to Earth with a case of amnesia. That’s Alien Cabal (1997). It’s a weird mix of FPS action and X-Fil...

Back when PC shoot-’em-ups were still proving they could match arcades, Raptor: Call of the Shadows landed like a missile. Fast, crunchy, and blessed with explosions that fee...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is a geopolitical strategy game developed by Chris Crawford and released in 1985. It is considered a classic in the genre of political and strate...

Lords of the Realm is top-down kingdom simulation game set in medieval Europe (England and Germany), designed by Christopher J. Foster and David Lester, developed by Impressions Ga...

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...

In Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse (1994), you’re not some grizzled barbarian or pointy-hatted wizard - no, you’re a noble corsair with charm, a sword, and a knack for gett...

Elvira: The Arcade Game trades puzzles for action and subtlety for pure chaos. This is fast, brutal, side-scrolling combat with monsters pouring in from every direction. Elvira&rsq...

Baseball Mogul (1997) was the original release that kicked off the whole franchise. Developed by Clay Dreslough and published by Infinite Monkey Systems, this was a pioneer in the ...

Conquests of the Longbow turns Robin Hood into less of a carefree swashbuckler and more of a medieval problem solver with a never-ending to-do list. Sure, you’ll shoot arrows...

Boston Bomb Club (1991, DOS) is a Rube Goldberg fever dream disguised as a puzzle game. Your mission: guide bombs (yes, bombs) along increasingly elaborate tracks using contraption...

In Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes, the stakes go from “oops, stranded on Mars” to “uh-oh, Earth is doomed.” The Vorticons have planted death lasers in...

Rome: Pathway to Power (also known as Rome AD 92) is an abandoned isometric adventure game with strategy elements set in ancient Rome. Rome was developed by Millennium Interactive ...

Imagine Tetris went on a sugar binge and had an identity crisis. That’s Zyconix (1992, DOS) in a nutshell. It’s a tile-matching puzzle game where nothing quite behaves ...

Released in 1983 for DOS, Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator is what happens when early arcade design meets Federation bureaucracy. Vector-style graphics make you feel like ...

If your childhood involved model trains and elaborate setups that your cat kept destroying, 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown is digital therapy. Released in 2000 for Windows XP, it mixes ...

Part strategy, part fantasy empire builder, Realms gives you a continent to wrangle and a surprising number of ways to embarrass yourself. You recruit armies, juggle rebellious pop...

One-Nil Soccer Manager is a text-based soccer management simulation game that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed for various home computer systems, inc...

Ah, 1000 Miglia - the only racing game where you can almost smell the exhaust fumes and espresso. Based on the historic Italian road race, it’s less about speed and more abou...

Castles 2 took everything the first game did and cranked it up with actual diplomacy, espionage, and conquest mechanics. Now you’re not just stacking bricks—you’r...

SimCity 3000 is a city-building simulation game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It was released in 1999 as the third major installment in the SimCity series, f...

From the people who brought you Dungeons & Dragons, here's Blood & Magic (1996), the RTS that nobody remembers but definitely deserves a second glance. You summon golems fr...