abandonware games sorted by popularity

The proto-fighting game that walked so Street Fighter could punch. Yie Ar Kung Fu is pure arcade joy: a brave martial artist named Oolong fights a rogue’s gallery of opponent...

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, ...

In Montezuma’s Revenge (1984), you play Panama Joe, an explorer who spends more time falling into pits than actually raiding temples. This early platformer is all about timin...

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...

In Gauntlet, four brave souls (or just you with an overworked space bar) hack, slash, and gobble food like medieval Pac-Men. This 1986 dungeon crawler is basically a family reunion...

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...

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat is a combat flight simulation video game released in 1991 by Electronic Arts. The game is named after and endorsed by the real-life aviation legend, Chuck...

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...

Doofus (1994) is what happens when platformers go slightly off the rails. You guide a floppy-haired kid through surreal, cartoony landscapes filled with hazards that feel more anno...

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...

F-14 Tomcat is the kind of flight simulator that makes you feel like you should be wearing aviator sunglasses and chewing gum while sitting at your desk. Released at the height of ...

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...

Hook brings the world of Peter Pan into video game form, blending platforming with a light sense of adventure. Released in 1992, it captures the whimsical tone of its source materi...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a famously peculiar interactive fiction adventure based on Douglas Adams's equally peculiar science-fiction comedy. Playing it is less about...

Rambo First Blood Part 2 is a 1985 action game based on the film sequel and one of the earlier attempts to bring the famous soldier's adventures to home computers. Players control ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

NeoPaint 3.2 is a raster-based graphics editing software designed for DOS. It is a lightweight yet powerful alternative to more complex image editing programs like Photoshop. NeoPa...

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....

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 ...

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 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. ...

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...

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...

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...

In this 1990 point-and-click adventure, you find yourself in Las Vegas with no memory of how you got there. Solve puzzles, gather clues, and uncover the mystery behind your amnesia...

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...