abandonware games sorted by popularity

F29 Retaliator is what happens when a flight simulator decides it wants to be a blockbuster action movie. You’re piloting a fictional next-generation stealth fighter through ...

Before Football Manager devoured your social life, there was Championship Manager. With graphics as bare as a locker room and stats as detailed as a tax form, it’s a numbers ...

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...

Q*Bert is a 1984 arcade classic that takes a small orange creature, places him on a pyramid of colorful cubes, and then makes the entire structure a surprisingly dangerous workplac...

A direct sequel to Deathwatch, Ancients 2: Approaching Evil is like returning to your childhood neighborhood, except everyone’s still trying to kill you. Released in 1994, it...

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...

Artura is a hack-and-slash side-scroller that looks like someone tried to draw Gauntlet from memory after a power outage. You’re some kind of Celtic warrior on a mystical mis...

Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? is an educational computer game and television game show franchise created by Broderbund. It focuses on teaching geography and history while playe...

Renegade is a 1988 DOS beat 'em up that puts players in the role of a tough street fighter battling gangs through urban environments. The basic formula is wonderfully direct: walk ...

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...

If Baldur’s Gate was a sprawling epic, Shadows of Amn is the Shakespearean sequel with better everything: graphics, writing, drama. Your soul is stolen (again), your allies a...

By 1996, Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition on DOS felt like the veteran fighter returning for one last round. You could finally play as the bosses, which was a childhood dream...

Released in 1987, this game has you waking up in a toilet stall with no memory of who you are. As detective Ace Harding, you must clear your name and restore your memories. It's li...

Alien Rampage (1996) is what happens when Duke Nukem gets stranded on a hostile alien planet and decides subtlety is for cowards. It’s a side-scrolling shooter dripping with ...

Might and Magic: World of Xeen is what happens when two already massive RPGs decide to shake hands and merge into one enormous adventure. By combining Clouds of Xeen and Darkside o...

If Frontier: Elite 2 opened the door to a vast universe, Frontier: First Encounters in 1995 basically kicked it wide open and invited you to wander in. This sequel expands the form...

You thought the first one was hard? Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty laughs at your pain and then asks you to infiltrate a Gestapo HQ with a knife and a prayer. This standalone e...

By 1993, Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out! embraced fully voiced dialogue and colorful VGA graphics, giving the long-running comedy series a significant technical upgrade...

Primal Rage is a 1995 fighting game that replaces traditional martial artists with enormous prehistoric creatures battling for dominance in a post-apocalyptic world. Players choose...

Nebulus, also known as Tower Toppler in some regions, is a classic video game released in the 1980s. It was developed by John M. Phillips and published by Hewson Consultants. The g...

Tetris is the kind of game that looks harmless until you realize you’ve been staring at falling blocks for three hours straight. Released in 1987, this deceptively simple puzzle ...

If you ever wanted to feel like you were trapped in a washing machine armed with lasers, Descent is your game. Released in 1995, this claustrophobic, six-degrees-of-freedom shooter...

Great Naval Battles vol. 5: Demise of the Dreadnoughts takes you back even further, exploring naval warfare at a time when technology and tactics were evolving rapidly. In Great Na...

Often regarded as the high point of the series, King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow follows Prince Alexander as he searches for Princess Cassima across the mysterious Land o...

Released in 1988 for DOS, this game lets you drive monster trucks across deserts, swamps, and icy wastelands with all the grace of a drunken forklift. It’s less about speed a...

KGB delivers one of the most ambitious espionage adventures of the early 1990s, placing players inside a complex web of political intrigue during the final years of the Soviet Unio...

Lyle in Cube Sector (2006, Windows) looks like it fell out of a lost NES cartridge and landed straight on your hard drive. This indie metroidvania has you tossing cubes, exploring ...