abandonware games sorted by popularity

SimLife is a 1992 life simulation that allows players to create and manipulate ecosystems, experimenting with plants, animals, environments, genetics, and evolutionary development....

Titus the Fox is a colorful platform game starring Titus, a determined fox who must travel through hazardous environments to rescue his girlfriend. The game throws obstacles, enemi...

Atomix is a tile-based puzzle game released in 1990 by Thalion Software for platforms like Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and Commodore 64. The objective of Atomix is to assemble mo...

Borland Turbo C v1 introduced one of the classic programming environments of the personal-computer era. Released when C development on DOS could be a rather intimidating affair, Tu...

This 1986 DOS classic sounds way cooler than it is — ACE: Air Combat Emulator promises combat, but delivers what feels like flying a lawnmower through molasses. Still, for it...

The Legend of Kyrandia: Malcolm's Revenge is the third and final installment in the Legend of Kyrandia series. This point-and-click adventure game was developed and published by We...

Cool Spot proves that even a soft drink mascot can star in a surprisingly fun platformer. You’re a tiny, sunglasses-wearing red dot who surfs soda bubbles, rescues friends tr...

Hostage: Rescue Mission puts you in a high-stakes situation where planning and precision matter far more than reflexes. Released in 1989, it blends strategy with action, asking you...

In Ancients 1: Deathwatch, you gather your pixelated party and set off to cleanse a city of evil, or at least try not to get mugged by slimes. It's a dungeon crawler in classic DOS...

F-19 Stealth Fighter is all about sneaking in, doing your job, and getting out before anyone realizes what just happened. Instead of brute-force dogfighting, this game focuses on s...

PGA Tour Golf is a 1990 golf simulation that brings the famous sport to the computer with a focus on accuracy, strategy, and careful planning. Players can compete on realistic cour...

You survived Zork I, and now it’s personal. In Zork II, you face off against the enigmatic Wizard of Frobozz, who exists mostly to mess with you like a magical prankster with...

You thought running a government was hard? Try doing it with a smug civil servant and a budget crisis every five minutes. In Yes, Prime Minister, you play as Jim Hacker, the PM him...

Power Dolls is a 1994 tactical strategy game that places players in command of an elite female military unit equipped with powerful combat machines. The game combines turn-based pl...

The Terminator: Rampage puts you behind the controls of a combat vehicle in a future where humanity's relationship with Skynet has gone about as badly as expected. The game combine...

Dark Ages Volume I: Prince of Destiny introduces you to the world of Agroth, where magic, monsters, and your questionable combat skills collide. You play as a hero destined to save...

If Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego had a caffeinated younger cousin, it would be Bush Buck: Global Treasure Hunter. You race around the globe chasing clues, dodging rivals, a...

The Guild of Thieves is a classic interactive fiction adventure in which exploration, puzzles, and carefully written descriptions do most of the heavy lifting. Set in a world of my...

Karadoc’s back, and apparently inflation hit the dungeon economy hard—he wants his gold! Cadaver: The Payoff is less a sequel and more a direct continuation, like findi...

If your idea of excitement is waiting... and waiting... and maybe catching a giant digital tuna, Big Game Fishing is your dream come true. Simulate the thrill of casting a line wit...

F-22 Lightning II brings the flight sim genre into the late ’90s with faster action, flashier visuals, and a jet that feels like it came straight out of a sci-fi movie. The F...

Imagine Tetris but in three dimensions and your brain slowly melting into a puddle of confusion. That is Blockout. You drop 3D shapes into a pit and try to line them up, but nothin...

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...

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...

Big Red Racing is what happens when you combine arcade mayhem with zero regard for realism and lots of British sarcasm. Drive everything from dump trucks to hovercrafts, insult you...

Platoon is a 1987 action strategy game based on the famous Vietnam War film, placing players in a dangerous military environment where survival depends on careful decisions. The ga...

Metal Gear introduces the legendary Solid Snake to computer players in a stealth adventure built around infiltration rather than brute force. Sneaking past guards, gathering intell...

Released in 1983, this classic arcade-style shooter has you defending humanoids from alien abductions. Fly your ship across a scrolling landscape, blasting enemies and saving innoc...

NetHack is one of the great survivors of computer gaming, a 1987 roguelike that has been challenging players for decades with randomly generated dungeons, brutal enemies, complex s...

Xenon 2000: Project PCF is a vertical-scrolling shoot 'em up video game and originally released in 2000. It is a sequel to the earlier game "Xenon 2: Megablast," which was develope...