abandonware games sorted by popularity

Alien Syndrome (1989) is a top-down shooter where you save hostages, shoot aliens, and scream internally because you’re always out of time. It’s frantic arcade action a...

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,...

Quest for Glory III: Wages of War is an adventure/role-playing game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1992. The player takes on the role of the Hero, who has journe...

With a title like Dogfight: 80 Years of Aerial Warfare, you know you’re in for a serious history lesson disguised as a game. Released in 1993, this DOS flight sim spans decad...

Railroad Tycoon Deluxe feels like someone took the original game, showered it with confetti, tuned the engine, and handed it back with a wink. Better colors, refined scenarios, and...

Ah yes, Blood (1997)—the cheerful little game where you rise from the grave, wield a pitchfork, and quote evil-sounding movie lines while setting cultists on fire. It’s...

Ghosts 'n Goblins is an iconic arcade game developed by Capcom, first released in 1985. It’s widely remembered for its challenging gameplay and its distinct horror-fantasy ae...

Quake II is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and released in 1997. It is the sequel to the original Quake and was a significant milestone in the evolution...

Paint Shop Pro 3 is an early version of PaintShop Pro, which is a graphics editing program known for its user-friendly interface and a range of features that cater to both amateur ...

Magic Carpet is an action shooter game set in a fictional Middle East developed by Bullfrog and released by Electronic Arts in 1994 for DOS and Macintosh. Your goal is to fly aroun...

Electroman is a cheerful little platformer with a big grin and zero interest in realism. You play as a cartoonish superhero zipping through levels full of gadgets, traps, and enemi...

If spreadsheets are your love language, Capitalism 2 is pure romance. This brutally detailed simulation lets you create your own corporate empire from scratch—manufacturing, ...

Escape from Hell asks the important question: what if escaping the underworld were less Dante and more sarcastic road trip? You descend into a demon-infested landscape armed with d...

ELIZA, created in the mid-1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, was one of the first computer programs to simulate human conversation. Designed as a natural language processing demons...

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...

In this 1986 DOS game, you're piloting a spacecraft in the year 2123, defending the United Planets from the Andromedan Hegemony. It's like being the captain of a starship, but with...

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe is a combat flight simulation game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games (later known as LucasArts) in 1991. It was designed for MS-DOS systems...

Released in 1997, Extreme Assault is a bold and ambitious hybrid that blends flight simulation with ground combat in a futuristic setting. You pilot advanced military hardware acro...

Empire Deluxe is the kind of strategy game that politely pretends to be simple while quietly stealing entire weekends from your life. On the surface, it’s a turn-based war ga...

Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (1992) is what happens when a simple beat-’em-up decides to go globetrotting. Instead of just brawling through alleys, Billy and Jimmy trav...

Shadowcaster is a first-person action role-playing game developed by Raven Software and published by Origin Systems. It was released in 1993 for MS-DOS computers.In Shadowcaster, p...

The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate is the second installment in the Legend of Kyrandia point and click adventure game series developed by Westwood Studios. It was released in 199...

Flashback: The Quest for Identity feels like a playable sci-fi movie that misplaced its budget but kept its ambition. You wake up with amnesia, which is gaming shorthand for &ldquo...

War in Middle-earth is a real-time strategy game developed by Synergistic Software and published by Melbourne House. It was released in 1988 for various platforms including the Com...

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...

Turns out war is a lot tidier when it’s turn-based. Battle Isle (1991) gives you neat little hexagons to move your units on, like a very angry board game. It’s got stra...

Gorillas, also known as "Gorillas.bas," is a turn-based artillery game that was included as a sample program with Microsoft QBasic, an IDE and interpreter for a variant of the...