abandonware games sorted by popularity

Banner Mania is a DOS graphics utility devoted to the surprisingly important art of making banners, signs, headings, and other large pieces of text. Before modern desktop publishin...

Powermonger takes the god-game formula of Populous and gives it teeth. Instead of playing benevolent deity, you’re more like a slightly cranky warlord, sending little soldier...

Night Breed is a 1990 action game based on the dark, unsettling world of Clive Barker, which means players should not expect a cheerful stroll through a particularly friendly neigh...

American McGee's Alice takes Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and gives it a decidedly darker makeover. Alice is no longer simply wandering through a whimsical fantasy populated by eccen...

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...

Operation Wolf is a 1989 arcade-style military shooter that puts the player directly into the middle of a dangerous rescue mission. The objective is simple enough: shoot enemies, p...

Supaplex is a deceptively simple puzzle game that takes the basic idea of moving objects around a maze and turns it into a surprisingly demanding exercise in planning. Inspired by ...

Ski or Die is a winter sports-themed video game that was originally released in 1990 for various platforms, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, and MS-DOS. The game was developed by...

Microsoft Decathlon challenges players to compete in ten demanding track-and-field events, including running, jumping, throwing, and several activities specifically designed to mak...

Utopia: The Creation of a Nation challenges you to build and manage a society, which sounds noble until everything starts going wrong at once. Released in 1992, it blends simulatio...

Amberstar is a fantasy old school RPG very similar to Ultima 6 that uses a top-down view for interiors and small locations and a first person pseudo 3D view for everything else. Un...

SimuSex is an unusual 1992 DOS simulation built around adult-themed experimentation rather than the conventional goals found in most games of the period. It treats relationships an...

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe takes the classic globe-trotting detective formula and gives it a more substantial presentation. Carmen Sandiego is still on the run, ...

Wizardry 2: The Knight of Diamonds takes the classic dungeon crawl and adds a few extra twists, like more mazes to get lost in and puzzles designed to make you question your life c...

Transarctica presents a wonderfully bleak vision of the future in which Earth has frozen over and surviving civilization depends on enormous trains crossing the icy wilderness. The...

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is one of the great comedy adventures, combining clever puzzles, unforgettable characters, and writing sharp enough to cut through a pirate ship'...

Star Wars is a 1988 DOS game based on the original Star Wars trilogy, bringing the familiar universe of starfighters, space battles, and Imperial enemies to the home computer. The ...

In Color Lines (1992, DOS), colors aren’t just pretty—they're plotting your demise. You match five or more balls in a row before your screen becomes a chaotic rainbow p...

Premier Manager 2 polished the formula, giving football nerds even more stats to obsess over. If you thought juggling line-ups and balancing books was fun in the first game, this s...

The Civil War from 1995 takes a more developed approach to the American conflict, presenting its historical subject through strategy, military planning, and campaign management. Th...

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...

Gold of the Americas: The Conquest of the New World is a strategy game that invites you to rewrite history, usually by making the same mistakes but with more confidence. You manage...

King’s Bounty is a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, originally released in 1990 by New World Computing. It was created by Jon Van Caneghem, also known for the Migh...

The Black Cauldron brings Disney's animated fantasy world to the computer in the form of an adventure game. Released in 1986, it follows the story and characters of the film while ...

Imagine stepping into a sci-fi fever dream written during a caffeine crash, and you’ll get Bargon Attack (1992). This French point-and-click adventure is stylish, surreal, an...

Holiday Lemmings takes the familiar chaos of tiny, clueless creatures marching toward doom and gives it a festive twist. Released in 1993, it dresses up the classic formula with ho...

Rise of the Robots is a 1994 fighting game built around the idea of heavily armed machines battling through a futuristic industrial world. Players control a combat robot and face i...

In 1990, Dragon Wars tried to out-Bard’s Tale the Bard’s Tale series. With a gritty fantasy setting, brutal difficulty, and surprisingly deep lore, it succeeded in feel...

Deus Ex is a critically acclaimed action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released in 2000 and was designed by Warren Spect...

Lamborghini: American Challenge (1992) is what happens when arcade racing meets a poster-covered teenage bedroom. You race exotic cars across the U.S., earn money, upgrade vehicles...