abandonware games sorted by popularity

ShadowCaster is a 1993 DOS first-person action RPG that blends fantasy, exploration, and combat in a world where the player can transform into different magical creatures. Each for...

Released in 1992, Sextris answered a question nobody had urgently asked by combining puzzle mechanics with cheeky adult themes. Beneath the eyebrow-raising presentation lay a surpr...

Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? is an educational computer game and television game show franchise created by Broderbund. It focuses on teaching geography and history while playe...

Released in 1998 for Windows XP-era PCs, Fatal Relations is an interactive drama that leans heavily into adult themes, intrigue, and morally questionable choices. More visual novel...

Primal Rage is a 1995 fighting game that replaces traditional martial artists with enormous prehistoric creatures battling for dominance in a post-apocalyptic world. Players choose...

The Settlers II: Veni, Vidi, Vici takes everything that worked in the original and polishes it until it shines like a freshly forged sword. The graphics are warmer, the maps are bi...

Mixed-up Mother Goose turns classic nursery rhymes into a cheerful point-and-click adventure where familiar characters and objects have been scattered across a colorful world. Play...

The proto-fighting game that walked so Street Fighter could punch. Yie Ar Kung Fu is pure arcade joy: a brave martial artist named Oolong fights a rogue’s gallery of opponent...

In Ancients 1: Deathwatch, you gather your pixelated party and set off to cleanse a city of evil, or at least try not to get mugged by slimes. It's a dungeon crawler in classic DOS...

Released in 1993, Sexy Fighter entered the fighting genre with confidence and enough outrageous humor to make it stand apart from more serious competitors. Matches were straightfor...

Ninja Rabbits is a 1992 platform game that takes the concept of the ninja and adds a rabbit, because apparently the genre had not yet reached its full potential for unusual protago...

Forget Freddy’s razor glove for a second - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989) for DOS is terrifying in its own way. Mostly because of the controls. You play as a teen trying to...

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 ...

MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients is the sequel to MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy. It is a science fiction role-playing game (RPG) released in 1991, developed by Par...

Night Shift is a 1990 action game with a wonderfully unusual premise: instead of saving the world, the player is busy working a night shift. Naturally, this is not an ordinary job,...

If you ever wanted to feel like you were trapped in a washing machine armed with lasers, Descent is your game. Released in 1995, this claustrophobic, six-degrees-of-freedom shooter...

Lyle in Cube Sector (2006, Windows) looks like it fell out of a lost NES cartridge and landed straight on your hard drive. This indie metroidvania has you tossing cubes, exploring ...

In Lucky Luke (1997, Windows), the fastest gun in the West is also the funniest. Based on the beloved Belgian comic, the game mixes platforming and slapstick as Luke outsmarts band...

A remake with ambition and tragedy, Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded promised to bring the king back in modern glory. It looked great, played smooth, and... was never officially released. W...

Might and Magic: World of Xeen is what happens when two already massive RPGs decide to shake hands and merge into one enormous adventure. By combining Clouds of Xeen and Darkside o...

Simon the Sorcerer is a wonderfully irreverent 1993 adventure that follows Simon, a sarcastic teenager who is transported to a fantasy world and promptly discovers that becoming a ...

Champions of Krynn is a RPG released in 1990 by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and is the first game in the Dragonlance Gold Box series. It is based on the Advanced Dungeons &am...

Alien Legacy (1994) is like SimCity crashed into Star Trek and nobody called the insurance company. It’s a real-time strategy/simulation game that has you managing a colony i...

Crusaders of the Dark Savant is a sprawling saga with enough content to make your eyes bleed and your fingers cramp. The game blends strategy, exploration, and role-playing with a ...

Long before comic-book games became blockbuster spectacles, The Punisher (1990, DOS) delivered gritty vigilante action with a side of pixelated attitude. You step into Frank Castle...

KGB delivers one of the most ambitious espionage adventures of the early 1990s, placing players inside a complex web of political intrigue during the final years of the Soviet Unio...

Destruction Derby (1995) is the game that taught us driving isn’t about speed or elegance—it’s about gleefully ramming your car into other vehicles until only twi...

Populous 2: Trials of the Olympian Gods expands the original god simulation concept by adding mythology, new powers, and even greater control over the world. Players take on the ro...