abandonware games sorted by popularity

Windwalker (Moebius 2) is a fantasy adventure that follows the successful tradition of combining exploration, combat, character development, and a large world into one ambitious pa...

If you’ve ever thought, “What if Pac-Man got lost in a modernist art gallery?”, then A-Maze is your oddly specific dream come true. Released in 1989 for DOS, this...

Comix Zone (1995, Windows XP) is what happens when a comic book artist gets pulled into his own creation and reacts by roundhouse-kicking everything in sight. Stylized to the max, ...

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...

Theme Park turns amusement-park management into a colorful strategy game where every roller coaster, burger stand and souvenir shop can become part of your grand financial empire. ...

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet software for personal computers, and it played a pivotal role in the early history of personal computing. It was developed by Dan Bricklin and Bo...

With Might and Magic 4: Clouds of Xeen, the series heads to the colorful world of Xeen, where the sky is bright, the monsters are plentiful, and the sense of adventure is delightfu...

In Altered Destiny, a perfectly average guy named P.J. Barrett gets sucked into a bizarre alien dimension because he answered a phone call. Seriously. What follows is a classic poi...

In Ambush at Sorinor, tactics meet fantasy in a land where ambushing people is apparently the national sport. You’re a mercenary commander picking the right team to win missi...

What if ants could use bazookas and beetles had battle plans? Battle Bugs answers this crucial question by turning your screen into a war zone where tiny insects wage strategic war...

Space Quest 2: Vohaul’s Revenge continues Roger Wilco’s improbable rise from janitor to cosmic trouble magnet. This 1987 sequel ups the stakes by kidnapping Roger and t...

Before Virtua Tennis, there was this: 4D Sports Tennis, where physics and pixels politely shake hands and then forget why they were introduced. Released in 1990 for DOS, this game ...

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is a landmark open-world RPG that drops players into the strange island of Vvardenfell, a place filled with volcanic landscapes, ancient ruins, pol...

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...

The Operative: No One Lives Forever is a stylish first-person shooter that mixes espionage, comedy, and action with the confidence of a secret agent who has absolutely no intention...

Tomb Raider introduced Lara Croft to a generation of players and combined third-person exploration, platforming, puzzle solving and gunplay into a remarkably atmospheric adventure....

Mines of Titan is a science fiction role-playing adventure set on the harsh surface of Saturn's moon, where survival depends on exploration, resource management, and careful decisi...

In Gold Rush!, the American dream is alive and well, provided you don’t mind a bit of hardship, questionable decision-making, and the occasional untimely demise. This adventu...

Based on the legendary Argentine comic, L'Eternauta: Gli Invasori della Città Eterna (1994) is bleak, atmospheric, and proudly uninterested in holding your hand. Set in a sn...

Welcome to the squared circle of wireframe pain. Released in 1991 for DOS, this game puts you in the gloves of a boxer rendered entirely out of jagged geometry. The animation was r...

Mission: Impossible brings the famous spy franchise to the computer in an action-oriented adventure filled with dangerous missions, enemy agents, and situations where subtlety is g...

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...

Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion turns up the difficulty (and the body count) by tossing Dave into a gothic nightmare of zombies, ghosts, and bloodthirsty critters. Armed with...

Jagged Alliance 2 is a turn-based tactical role-playing strategy game developed by Sir-Tech and released in 1999 for Windows. It is the sequel to the original Jagged Alliance and h...

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...

Nobunaga's Ambition 2 expands on the historical strategy formula of its predecessor, once again placing players in the turbulent world of feudal Japan. Released in 1989, the game c...

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to drive very fast in what looks like a PowerPoint presentation with a need for speed, 240 Racing from 1998 delivers the thrill. ...

Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament expands the miniature racing formula with more vehicles, more tracks, and a host of new ways to turn tiny cars into surprisingly serious competit...

Robo Rumble is a 1998 Windows action game built around battles between heavily armed robots in futuristic arenas. Players control a combat machine, maneuver around the battlefield,...