abandonware games sorted by popularity

A game with a name like Battle Isle 93: The Moon of Chromos clearly means business. Released in 1993, it’s an expansion-slash-standalone with new missions, harder AI, and an ...

Laura Bow 2: The Dagger of Amon Ra is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in 1992. The game is a sequel to The Colonel's Bequest and follows ...

Silpheed is a 1988 DOS shoot-'em-up originally known for its impressive use of polygonal enemy designs and fast-paced space combat. Players pilot a futuristic fighter through a ser...

Star Control 3 continues the series' blend of space exploration, alien diplomacy, strategy, and combat, taking players back into a galaxy populated by numerous civilizations with t...

By the time Alone in the Dark 3 (1994, DOS) rolls around, Edward Carnby has seen it all - so now it’s off to the Wild West, because of course it is. Zombies? Check. Cowboys? ...

Strategy enthusiasts looking for a detailed World War II simulation will find plenty to appreciate in MacArthur's War. Focusing on the Pacific theater, the game challenges players ...

SimEarth is one of Maxis's most ambitious simulations, allowing players to experiment with the development of an entire planet rather than merely a city. Released in 1990, it model...

Paranormal agents, conspiracy theories, and point-and-click puzzles that would make even a ghost sigh in frustration. Bureau 13 is like The X-Files if Mulder and Scully spent more ...

AutoCAD 2.5 represents an important stage in the development of computer-aided design software, arriving when personal computers were beginning to become genuinely useful for techn...

Horror Zombies from the Crypt sounds like it should be terrifying, but in practice it leans more toward quirky than genuinely scary. Released in 1990, it mixes action and adventure...

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...

SimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony is a wonderfully eccentric 1991 simulation that lets players experience life from the perspective of an ant. Rather than building cities or managi...

Indiana Jones: Revenge of the Ancients from 1987 is one of those curious side stories that feels like it emerged from a parallel cinematic universe. Presented as a text-heavy adven...

Few adventure games manage to feel as effortlessly cool as Full Throttle. Released in 1995 by LucasArts, it places you in the boots of Ben, the gravel-voiced leader of the Polecats...

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 ...

Nebulus, also known as Tower Toppler in some regions, is a classic video game released in the 1980s. It was developed by John M. Phillips and published by Hewson Consultants. The g...

World Games is a collection of unusual sporting events designed to prove that the Olympics did not have a monopoly on strange ways of hurting yourself. Instead of concentrating on ...

Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf (1994) gives you one helicopter, a desert full of angry enemies, and more explosions than a summer blockbuster. It’s part shooter, part reso...

With Gary Grigsby’s War in Russia, the scale somehow gets even bigger, and the margin for error even smaller. This is strategy at its most unforgiving, where moving a unit on...

Based on the James Bond film of the same name, James Bond 007: A View to a Kill arrived in 1985 and delivered a mixture of action and adventure sequences inspired by the movie. Pla...

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is a landmark open-world RPG that drops players into the strange island of Vvardenfell, a place filled with volcanic landscapes, ancient ruins, pol...

Released in 1987, this is less of a simulator and more of a fever dream where you pilot a flying box over a grid pretending to be terrain. 3-D Helicopter Simulator was ambitious fo...

Sleuth: A Murder Mystery is a 1983 detective game that puts the player in the role of an investigator trying to solve a murder through deduction and careful examination of evidence...

In Gauntlet, four brave souls (or just you with an overworked space bar) hack, slash, and gobble food like medieval Pac-Men. This 1986 dungeon crawler is basically a family reunion...

Ultimate Soccer Manager taps into the irresistible fantasy of running a football club without ever leaving your chair. Instead of flashy graphics, it offers spreadsheets, statistic...

Circuit's Edge is a cyberpunk-themed role-playing game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Infocom. It was released in 1990 for MS-DOS. Set in a dystopian future, Cir...

Long before comic-book games became blockbuster spectacles, The Punisher (1990, DOS) delivered gritty vigilante action with a side of pixelated attitude. You step into Frank Castle...

The Godfather is a strategy and management game inspired by the world of organized crime, putting the player in charge of a criminal empire where loyalty, money, territory, and inf...

Released in 1993, Sexy Fighter entered the fighting genre with confidence and enough outrageous humor to make it stand apart from more serious competitors. Matches were straightfor...

Troika is a strategy game with a distinctly old-school approach, asking players to think carefully about resources, movement, and long-term decisions rather than simply charging ah...