abandonware games sorted by popularity

Interactive fiction meets comic book in this spin-off, where you follow a fantasy story through illustrated panels and scripted choices. Zork Quest: Assault on Egreth Castle feels ...

Released in 1995, Psycho Pinball is what happens when traditional pinball eats too much sugar and loses its mind. It’s loud, colorful, and gleefully unhinged, with four disti...

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a grave-robbing dwarf with a flair for interior dungeon decoration? Cadaver grants that peculiar wish. As Karadoc, you’ll wander an eer...

Before Command & Conquer, there was Command HQ (1990, DOS/Mac)—an early RTS that said “what if we made World War III playable?” It’s global domination m...

Imagine Cheers met Quantum Leap and got weirdly philosophical. That’s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, a narrative adventure based on Spider Robinson’s sci-fi stories...

Flying Tigers (1994, DOS) throws you into the Pacific theater with a grin and a trigger finger that never quite rests. It’s loud, brash, and unashamedly action-oriented, the ...

Gobliiins is a peculiar adventure game designed by Pierre Gilhodes, developed by French company Coktel Vision and released by Sierra On-Line in 1991 for DOS, Mac, Amiga and Atari S...

Released in 1988 for DOS, this game lets you drive monster trucks across deserts, swamps, and icy wastelands with all the grace of a drunken forklift. It’s less about speed a...

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet software for personal computers, and it played a pivotal role in the early history of personal computing. It was developed by Dan Bricklin and Bo...

Blasteroids is a video game developed and released by Atari, Inc. in 1987. It's a sequel to the classic arcade game Asteroids, which was released in 1979. In Blasteroids, players c...

A martial arts tournament starring fluffy animals with serious anger issues? Yes, please. Brutal: Paws of Fury is what happens when someone watches too much kung fu cinema and then...

Based on the legendary Argentine comic, L'Eternauta: Gli Invasori della Città Eterna (1994) is bleak, atmospheric, and proudly uninterested in holding your hand. Set in a sn...

Ultima 8 drops the Avatar into a grim, volcanic world where “fun” is defined as plummeting to your death from badly timed jumps. Yes, the infamous platforming mechanics...

In Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes, the stakes go from “oops, stranded on Mars” to “uh-oh, Earth is doomed.” The Vorticons have planted death lasers in...

Contra: Locked and Loaded is like caffeine in video game form—fast, explosive, and just a little dangerous for your health. You’re running, you’re gunning, and yo...

NetHack is an open-source roguelike game that's been around since the early 1980s. It's a single-player dungeon exploration game where you navigate your character through a randoml...

Menzoberranzan is a old DOS fantasy first person perspective RPG developed by DreamForge Intertainment in 1994 from an original idea by John McGirk. Menzoberranzan setting is based...

If Frontier: Elite 2 opened the door to a vast universe, Frontier: First Encounters in 1995 basically kicked it wide open and invited you to wander in. This sequel expands the form...

From the mind of Michael Crichton comes Amazon, a game that lets you live out your jungle explorer fantasies—without the bugs or dysentery. You’re off to the Amazon to ...

You are Sherlock Holmes, and someone has committed a crime, possibly because they couldn’t handle the game’s UI. 221B Baker Street is a detective board game where your ...

The name Carnage says it all—this top-down racer is less about precision driving and more about smashing into your enemies until they resemble digital roadkill. It’s fa...

Based loosely on Jules Verne’s famous tale, this game lets you live your steampunk submarine dreams with all the elegance of a DOS interface. You command the Nautilus, explor...