abandonware games sorted by popularity

MechWarrior (1989) was one of the first games to put players inside a 3D cockpit of a giant mech, but it wasn’t just a combat game, it was also an open-ended mercenary RPG, w...

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...

In 1987, Driller arrived as a revolutionary 3D game that looked light-years ahead of its time. Using the Freescape engine, it let players explore a fully 3D world—on a DOS ma...

God of Thunder is a classic computer game developed by Adept Software and released in 1993. It's a puzzle platformer with a fantasy theme. In the game, you control Thor, the Norse ...

Released in 1988, BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception is part RPG, part strategy, part “did I just die in the tutorial again?” You’re a young MechWarrior on...

Darklands is what happens when medieval Europe gets even darker than it already was. This 1992 RPG drops you into the Holy Roman Empire, but don’t expect knights in shining a...

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 ni...

The Colonel's Bequest is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 1989 for various platforms, including MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST. T...

Super Space Invaders takes the old “shoot the aliens before they land” formula and pours a shot of espresso into it. The result? Faster, flashier, and mildly panic-indu...

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is one of the most influential and innovative role-playing games (RPGs) in video game history. Released in 1985 by Richard Garriott under the Origin ...

In Gauntlet, four brave souls (or just you with an overworked space bar) hack, slash, and gobble food like medieval Pac-Men. This 1986 dungeon crawler is basically a family reunion...

Q*bert is a classic arcade game that was created by Warren Davis and Jeff Lee and was released by Gottlieb in 1982. The main goal of Qbert is to change the color of every...

NeoPaint 3.2 is a raster-based graphics editing software designed for DOS. It is a lightweight yet powerful alternative to more complex image editing programs like Photoshop. NeoPa...

Ghosts 'n Goblins is an iconic arcade game developed by Capcom, first released in 1985. It’s widely remembered for its challenging gameplay and its distinct horror-fantasy ae...

In this 1990 point-and-click adventure, you find yourself in Las Vegas with no memory of how you got there. Solve puzzles, gather clues, and uncover the mystery behind your amnesia...

Nuclear War is an abandoned turn-based strategy game designed by Eric Hyman and Jon Van Caneghem. Nuclear War was developed and released by New World Computing in 1989 for Amiga an...

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York expands the formula by giving you a larger playground and more opportunities to cause cartoonish chaos. Released in 1992, it follows a similar struct...

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...

Ah, Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior—the game where loincloths are tiny and sword swings are deadly. This 1989 fighter slashed its way onto DOS with decapitations, grunts, and...

The sequel nobody asked for, but we’re still kinda glad happened. California Games 2 adds even weirder sports: jet-skiing, hang gliding, and bodyboarding, which is like surfi...

In Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Sierra took the Wild West and decided it needed more jokes, more puns, and significantly more medical malpractice. Released in 1993, this po...

Explosions? Check. Missiles? Check. Graphics that look like someone spilled gray soup on your monitor? Double check. A-10 Tank Killer lets you pilot a flying war machine and rain c...

Frederik Pohl’s Gateway is science fiction that doesn’t hold your hand—or particularly care if you survive. Based on Pohl’s novel, this 1992 adventure drops...

Before Command & Conquer, there was Command HQ (1990, DOS/Mac)—an early RTS that said “what if we made World War III playable?” It’s global domination m...

A Night with Troi (1991) sounds like a fan fiction gone too far - and, well, that’s pretty much what it is. It’s a DOS-based “adventure” in the loosest sens...