abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1989, Ghostbusters 2 gives you another shot at wrangling ectoplasm with the world’s most overqualified exterminators. Inspired by the movie sequel, it’s equ...

Ultima 2 asks the pressing question: what if you mixed time travel with fantasy and a truly mean sorceress named Minax? The answer is chaos. You’ll bounce between eras—...

Anvil of Dawn is what happens when 1995 tries to reinvent the fantasy RPG and ends up creating something strangely beautiful. It’s first-person, it’s real-time, and it&...

Billy’s babysitter has been abducted by aliens, and he’s not having it. Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter! is the series at its most Saturday-morning-cartoon ...

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 ba...

Magic Carpet is an action shooter game set in a fictional Middle East developed by Bullfrog and released by Electronic Arts in 1994 for DOS and Macintosh. Your goal is to fly aroun...

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 whos...

In Montezuma’s Revenge (1984), you play Panama Joe, an explorer who spends more time falling into pits than actually raiding temples. This early platformer is all about timin...

Do you find spreadsheets thrilling? Does the idea of profit margins make your heart race? Then Business Simulator is your kind of party. It’s all about running a faceless com...

Free Enterprise from 1996 is business simulation with a distinctly ’90s sense of ambition. You’re tasked with building and managing a corporate empire, juggling finance...

Wipeout is a popular racing video game known for its high-speed gameplay, anti-gravity racing vehicles, and electronic music soundtracks. Wipeout was developed and published b...

Imagine Cheers met Quantum Leap and got weirdly philosophical. That’s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, a narrative adventure based on Spider Robinson’s sci-fi stories...

A-Train (1992) is the game that proves building a railroad empire can be just as stressful as running an actual train. Available on DOS and Mac, it’s a complex economic simul...

After the success of Ultima 6: The False Prophet, Origin decided to "create worlds" not part of the popular Ultima series (strictly speaking) using the same engine of Ultima 6. The...

The final Championship Manager to grace DOS—and what a send-off. Season 97/98 is the fan-favorite for a reason: every transfer, every injury, every last-minute goal feels lik...

Sierra Championship Boxing is an abandoned sports boxing game, developed by Evryware and released by Sierra On-Line in 1985. You can issue instructions to the boxer between rounds,...

Times of Lore is an abandoned action RPG designed by Chris Roberts, developed and released by Origin Systems in 1989 for DOS and many more 8 bit and 16 bit platforms. Compared to U...

Ascii Sector is what happens when someone takes Privateer, removes the graphics, and replaces them with pure ASCII and sheer willpower. It’s open-world space sim meets roguel...

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...

American Conquest is the kind of game that throws hundreds of little soldiers at you and says, "Good luck, General!" Set during the early colonization of the Americas, this RTS ble...

Panger General is a turn based strategy wargame developed by SSI set in World War 2. The player can choose Axis or Allies and fight against the AI or another human player in more t...

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...