abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1996 for DOS, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo brings you back to foggy Victorian London, where murders, morphine, and moustaches abound. ...

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games (now known as LucasArts). It was first released in 1988 for various p...

Scorched Earth (1991) was the “mother of all games” long before Doom took the title. Two or more tanks face off on a randomly generated terrain, and your only mission i...

Caution: subtlety not included. Blue Angel 69, released in 1989 for DOS, is basically what happens when a programmer tries to mix erotic art with a tile-based puzzle game and ends ...

From the people who brought you Dungeons & Dragons, here's Blood & Magic (1996), the RTS that nobody remembers but definitely deserves a second glance. You summon golems fr...

Screamer (1995) was the moment when PC gamers realized DOS could, in fact, go fast. A blistering arcade racer inspired by Daytona USA, it delivered glossy graphics, roaring engines...

Inca is a strange hybrid that feels like three different games stitched together by sheer ambition. One moment you’re managing resources and navigating an empire, the next yo...

Few games capture the feeling of “the galaxy is huge and you are spectacularly insignificant” quite like Frontier: Elite 2. Released in 1993, this ambitious sequel thro...

Crescent is a mysterious blend of action and intrigue set in a pixelated sci-fi world. The plot is sparse, dropped in cryptic hints as you battle your way through hostile landscape...

She’s pink, she’s fast, and she’s got a bow. CHAMP Ms. Pac-man reimagines the iconic maze-chaser with smooth controls and new levels while keeping that glorious m...

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...

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos (1993) is a classic first-person RPG that understands pacing better than many of its peers. It offers a rich fantasy world, memorable characters,...

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...

Emperor of the Fading Suns is a grand strategy game that looks at you and assumes you’ve cleared your schedule. Politics, religion, warfare, economics—it’s all he...

Karateka is a martial arts themed action / fighting game released by Broderbund in 1986 for DOS. Karateka is the first game designed by Jordan Mechner, the father of the ...

Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur is a text adventure with occasional graphics, in which you, the not-yet-king, bumble your way through Camelot trying to prove you’re not just ...

Afterlife is a simulation strategy game developed and published by LucasArts. It was released in 1996 for Microsoft Windows and later made available on other platforms. The game wa...

Chicago, 1920s. You’ve got a tommy gun, a fedora, and a score to settle. Capone is part gangster sim, part shooting gallery, and part fever dream. The graphics are muddy, the...

Shamus is a maze action game developed by William Mataga and published by Synapse Software in 1982. The game became popular on various home computer platforms of the early 1980s. I...

Witchaven is an abandoned fantasy first-person shooter (or "slasher", since you'll wield melee weapons) developed by Capstone and released by IntraCorp in 1995 for DOS and Windows....

If you ever wanted to roleplay in a text adventure where a coconut is of utmost importance, Beyond Zork has your back. This is Infocom at its most delightfully weird: part RPG, par...

Time travel stories tend to get complicated quickly, and Future Wars: Adventures in Time embraces that chaos with enthusiasm. Released in 1990, this cinematic adventure casts you a...

In Blitzkrieg: Battle at the Ardennes, you’re not just playing a wargame — you’re being handed a clipboard, a stack of orders, and a freezing cold battlefield in ...