abandonware games sorted by popularity

In Search of Dr. Riptide from 1994 is a science-fiction adventure with enough eccentricity to fill several galaxies. Players investigate mysteries, solve puzzles, and generally que...

Treasure Island turns Robert Louis Stevenson's famous pirate adventure into a compact computer game, giving you the chance to chase buried treasure without having to spend several ...

James Clavell's Shogun, a text adventure game developed by Infocom and released in 1989. Infocom was known for its interactive fiction games, and "James Clavell's Shogun" was one o...

MDK 2 takes the wonderfully bizarre formula of its predecessor and turns the chaos up another notch. The game switches between three very different characters, each bringing a comp...

Xargon is a platformer that feels like it was built with equal parts creativity and cheerful chaos. Levels are packed with secrets, strange enemies, and mechanics that sometimes se...

Grand Monster Slam takes tennis, removes anything resembling normal human athletes, and replaces them with creatures that look like they escaped a fever dream. In Grand Monster Sla...

By Ultima 3, the series had discovered the magic of party-based adventuring. No longer a lonely trek, now you command a ragtag group of heroes who bicker only in your imagination. ...

MicroLeague Wrestling brings the colorful spectacle of professional wrestling to the computer with a strong emphasis on managing performers, organizing matches, and creating entert...

Flight of the Amazon Queen is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Interactive Binary Illusions and originally released in 1995. The game is heavily inspired by the likes ...

Paperboy is a 1988 arcade classic that transforms the seemingly ordinary profession of newspaper delivery into a hazardous athletic event. Players ride a bicycle through suburban s...

Pool of Radiance is a 1988 role-playing classic based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons universe, bringing tabletop fantasy adventures to the computer screen. Players create a par...

Questprobe Featuring Spider-Man is a 1986 adventure game that puts the world’s most famous web-slinger into a computer-generated mystery filled with exploration, puzzles, and the...

Unnatural Selection is a quirky strategy game from 1993 that asks a simple question: what if evolution had a sense of humor? You’re tasked with guiding creatures through generati...

Few games from 1994 dared to ask the real question: “What if you gave an axe to someone with absolutely no training and dropped them into a dungeon with the reflexes of a slo...

Skate or Die is the embodiment of late-’80s “cool,” complete with neon chaos, absurdly dangerous skate events, and characters who look like they stepped out of a ...

The sequel no one expected takes our trench-coated hero from gothic horror to gangster ghost story. Yes, Alone in the Dark 2 (1993, DOS) swaps Lovecraftian horror for Tommy guns an...

Body Blows is a 2D fighting game developed and published by Team17, released in 1993. It was initially launched for the Amiga and later ported to MS-DOS. Body Blows was one of the ...

The final part of the original trilogy, Zork III ditches treasure-hunting in favor of introspection, moral puzzles, and the looming presence of the Dungeon Master—basically t...

Xtrek is a multiplayer-focused space simulation that captures the spirit of cooperative and competitive gameplay long before it became mainstream. Players pilot ships, complete obj...

Space Quest 4: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers takes the series into the wonderfully chaotic territory of time travel. Released in 1991, it gleefully tosses Roger across multiple ...

Star Wars is a 1988 DOS game based on the original Star Wars trilogy, bringing the familiar universe of starfighters, space battles, and Imperial enemies to the home computer. The ...

Tintin on the Moon sends the famous Belgian reporter into space for a colorful arcade adventure inspired by Hergé's comics. The setting gives the game an appealing combination of ...

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...

Before realistic fighting games, there was Boxer Rebellion—a 1982 title so primitive, it makes Pong look flashy. It’s boxing with fewer rules and more pixels per punch....

In Amnesia, you wake up in a hotel room with no idea who you are, where you are, or why someone wants you dead. And no, this isn’t a gritty FPS—it’s a text advent...

Icewind Dale arrived in 2000 as a frosty sibling to the Baldur's Gate formula, trading political intrigue for glorious dungeon crawling in the forgotten corners of the Forgotten Re...

Legends of Valour (1992) was one of those ambitious games that aimed to create a living, breathing fantasy city—and partially succeeded. Set in the sprawling metropolis of Mi...

Set in a foggy, postcard-perfect version of the British capital, Eagle Eye Mysteries in London takes the educational detective formula and gives it a polite accent. You play a youn...

If you ever wanted to pilot a hovering tank while yelling at a computer screen, Nova 9 has you covered. A sequel to Stellar 7, it puts you in the cockpit against Gir Draxon’s...

Back in 1983, IBM Centipede brought arcade bug-blasting straight to home computers, allowing office machines to moonlight as insect exterminators. This adaptation of the arcade cla...