abandonware games sorted by popularity

Warheads is a turn-based artillery game in the grand tradition of blowing your friends to pieces with ridiculous weapons. You control a team of tiny, heavily armed soldiers and tak...

In The Hunt is a side-scrolling shooter that looks like Metal Slug took a deep breath and dove underwater. Released in arcades first and later ported to PC, it’s all about pi...

When in Gaul, punch like the Gauls do. In Asterix and Obelix (1996), you control the iconic French duo on a globetrotting beat-‘em-up adventure that mostly involves sending R...

Released in 1992, Dylan Dog: Murderers brings Italy’s most famous nightmare investigator to the DOS screen with all the moody atmosphere you’d expect. It’s part p...

Raiden is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game developed by Seibu Kaihatsu and first released in arcades in 1990 and later for many home computers and consoles. Raiden fol...

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&...

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...

In 1989, Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals expanded the series by allowing players to control both Larry and the capable Passionate Patti...

Step into the polygonal shoes of Edward Carnby (or Emily Hartwood, if you're feeling bold) in Alone in the Dark, the grandfather of survival horror games. Released in 1992 for DOS,...

Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0 expands the already impressive flight simulation experience with improved graphics, more detailed environments, and a greater sense of realism. Playe...

Prophecy: The Fall of Trinadon is a 1989 fantasy role-playing game that combines adventure, exploration, and combat in a classic computer RPG format. Players journey through a worl...

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...

Released in 1991, Eye of the Beholder brought classic dungeon crawling into the digital age with style and confidence. Set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, it delivers grid-...

Blue Force is a police procedural adventure game developed and released by Tsunami Games in 1993. Blue Force is a point-and-click adventure game that follows the protagonist, ...

Cartooners lets you live out your childhood dream of being a one-person animation studio… minus the caffeine addiction. It’s a charming sandbox where you can draw your...

First Samurai is a classic action-platformer game originally released in 1991. The game was initially available on the Amiga and Atari ST, with later ports to the Commodore 64, DOS...

The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate is the third and final installment in the original The Bard’s Tale trilogy, developed by Interplay and published by Electronic Arts i...

If Clouds of Xeen was the sunny side of the adventure, Might and Magic 5: Darkside of Xeen gleefully flips the map over and shows you the other half. The tone is a bit darker, the ...

Beetlejuice: Skeletons in the Closet is a video game based on the popular Beetlejuice franchise, which includes a 1988 film directed by Tim Burton and an animated television series...

Altered Beast is a classic side-scrolling beat 'em up arcade game developed and published by Sega. It was originally released in arcades in 1988 and later ported to various home co...

Heimdall blends action and strategy in a way that feels ambitious, placing you in a mythological setting where decisions matter as much as reflexes. Managing resources, recruiting ...

Harpoon is a naval strategy game that takes itself seriously, which is both its strength and its greatest barrier. It offers a detailed simulation of modern naval warfare, requirin...

Little-known but oddly captivating, Kurtan (1990, DOS) feels like someone’s ambitious homebrew fantasy experiment gone right. You play a wandering warrior exploring a pixelat...

If you’ve ever thought The Lord of the Rings needed more ASCII and fewer hobbit feelings, Angband is your jam. Since 1992, this dungeon-crawling roguelike has been throwing p...

Released in 1994 (long after it originally debuted on other platforms), Ant Attack! is what you get when you mix isometric graphics, giant ants, and questionable urban planning. Yo...

Quake II is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and released in 1997. It is the sequel to the original Quake and was a significant milestone in the evolution...