abandonware games sorted by popularity

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...

BloodNet combines vampires, cyberspace, and noir in a cocktail so strange it probably shouldn’t work but somehow does. You are a hacker who just got bitten by a vampire and n...

Army Men 2 doubles down on everything from the first game - more weapons, more plastic carnage, more trips to “The Real World” where you fight in bathtubs and backyards...

Released in 1993, Jurassic Park allows players to experience the dangers of a dinosaur-filled island without the inconvenience of signing legal waivers. Based on the blockbuster fi...

Renegade is a 1988 DOS beat 'em up that puts players in the role of a tough street fighter battling gangs through urban environments. The basic formula is wonderfully direct: walk ...

Wheel of Fortune brings the familiar television game show into the computer age, complete with word puzzles, contestants, and the eternal temptation to buy a vowel. The basic idea ...

Touché: The Adventures of the Fifth Musketeer is a comic adventure set in a swashbuckling version of seventeenth-century France, where swords, schemes, and bad decisions tend to a...

Released in 1995, Lemmings 3D boldly transported the beloved puzzle series into a fully three-dimensional world. The familiar objective remains unchanged, but rotating the camera a...

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...

Hard Drivin' is what happens when someone looks at arcade racing and decides that what it really needs is existential dread and a physics engine that actively judges your driving s...

Bigger, deeper, and just as punishing, Gengis Khan 2: Clan of the Gray Wolf (1992) expands the formula with more maps, more rulers, and more ways to fail spectacularly. Want to uni...

Released in 1987, Falcon is the kind of flight simulator that politely informs you, within minutes, that you are not nearly as smart as you thought. This isn’t an arcade joyr...

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...

After Dark brought a rather different idea of entertainment to the desktop: instead of asking the computer to work harder, why not let it sit there and look interesting? The softwa...

Space exploration reaches impressive heights in Master of Orion, a strategy classic that challenges players to guide an interstellar civilization toward galactic supremacy. Coloniz...

If Street Rod was a rockabilly rebel, Street Rod 2 (1991, DOS) is its cooler, leather-jacket-wearing cousin. Everything’s bigger, badder, and more polished. The cars roar wit...

R-Type is a 1989 shoot 'em up that brings the relentless arcade action of the famous space shooter to DOS. Players pilot a small spacecraft through hostile environments packed with...

In Crusader: No Regret, subtlety is left at the door. You’re a heavily armed operative on a mission to blast your way through enemy installations, leaving nothing but rubble ...

Film Studio Tycoon Alpha is a management simulation about the glamorous world of filmmaking, except that glamour quickly gives way to budgets, scheduling, production decisions, and...

F-15 Strike Eagle III is a combat flight simulation video game released in 1992. It was developed by MicroProse and is the third installment in the F-15 Strike Eagle series. T...

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...

Motor City offers a fascinating mixture of urban exploration, driving, and strategy set in a detailed city environment. Players can navigate streets, manage vehicles, and take part...

The Manhole: CD-ROM Masterpiece Edition (1994, Windows/Mac) is the kind of game that makes you feel like you’ve fallen into a dream. Created by the same minds behind Myst, it...

Plundered Hearts is a 1987 interactive fiction adventure from Infocom that combines romance, pirates, and high-seas drama into a charming text-based story. Players take the role of...

Formula One (1994) approaches racing with a slightly more accessible grin than its stern predecessors. It still wants you to care about apexes and braking zones, but it’s hap...

Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire continues the adventures of the aspiring hero introduced in the first game, sending the player to the exotic desert land of Shapeir. Released in 19...

In Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail, you don’t just play King Arthur—you earn your role as the guy in charge of finding a cup with magical healing powers ...

Might and Magic: World of Xeen is what happens when two already massive RPGs decide to shake hands and merge into one enormous adventure. By combining Clouds of Xeen and Darkside o...

Cossacks: Back to War expands the large-scale real-time strategy formula of the Cossacks series with additional factions, campaigns, and battles inspired by European warfare. Huge ...

Star Wars: Dark Forces is a 1995 first-person shooter that brought the Star Wars universe into a darker, more action-oriented setting. Players control Kyle Katarn, a mercenary work...