abandonware games sorted by year, newest first

Laxius Power is a traditional Japanese-style role-playing game with a generous helping of exploration, battles, character development, and fantasy melodrama. Its story follows youn...

Released in 2002, Lemonade Tycoon proves that running a successful drink stand can be every bit as competitive as conquering an empire. Players adjust recipes, monitor weather fore...

Port Royale is a 2002 trading and strategy game that lets players experience the life of a merchant in the Caribbean during the age of sailing ships. Instead of becoming a legendar...

RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 expands the theme-park management formula with more attractions, construction options, scenarios, and creative possibilities. Players design elaborate amusem...

Sid Meier's SimGolf is a 2002 management game that combines golf with the wonderfully dangerous temptation to micromanage absolutely everything. Players design and build their own ...

Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams is the expanded 2002 version of one of the most celebrated psychological horror adventures of its generation. James Sunderland travels to the mysteri...

Syberia is a beautifully atmospheric adventure game that follows Kate Walker, a New York lawyer whose ordinary business trip turns into an extraordinary journey across a strange an...

In Taipan for Windows, you’re not a hero, you’re a 19th-century capitalist trying to get rich trading tea, silk, and the occasional bit of opium in the South China Sea....

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...

WinFrotz is a Windows implementation of Frotz, an interpreter designed to run classic Infocom-style interactive fiction using Z-machine story files. Instead of providing one specif...

X-COM: Alliance is one of those legendary “what could have been” titles, a fascinating ghost in gaming history rather than a fully realized experience. Originally envisioned as...

Ace 2.02 is one of those wonderfully obscure DOS utilities that feels like a small piece of computing archaeology. Rather than trying to impress with flashy graphics or elaborate p...

Anachronox is a 2001 role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive with a futuristic, cyberpunk-inspired setting. The game was written and direc...

Dive into Aquanox (2001), where post-apocalyptic submarines battle it out beneath the ocean in a world that’s half Waterworld, half neon rave. With moody lighting and dialogu...

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a classic role-playing game developed by Troika Games and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 2001 for Microsoft Windows. T...

If you've ever stared at a camel and thought, "What if it shot lasers and had a personal grudge against humanity?", Attack of the Mutant Camels is the fever dream you've been waiti...

In Auf Wiedersehen Monty, our favorite marsupial is back, and this time he's taking a very pixelated Eurotrip. Released for Windows XP in 2001, it's a nostalgia-fueled platformer t...

Aurora Dibularos is an unusual game with an equally unusual title, presenting a science-fiction setting through a mixture of exploration, action and puzzle-solving. Its world has t...

Black & White (2001) is what happens when a god game gets a bit too literal. You play as a deity, complete with a giant hand, an enormous ego, and a giant pet that poops on vil...

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, ...

Casino Mogul takes the casino idea a step further by putting the player in charge of the business rather than merely sitting at the blackjack table. The goal is to build and manage...

Civilization 3 expands the famous empire-building formula with a richer diplomatic system, improved graphics, expanded technology trees, and a more developed strategic model. Start...

An expansion to the original, Cossacks: The Art of War refines, expands, and generally cranks up the chaos. New units, new campaigns, and more ways to accidentally bankrupt your na...

Creatures Village trades explosions for adorable AI pets in a colorful sandbox world. You raise, teach, and care for Norns—genetically simulated cuties with personalities as ...

Desperados is a tactical western adventure that takes the familiar cowboy setting and replaces the usual run-and-gun chaos with careful planning. You control a small group of chara...

In Dragon Riders: Chronicles of Pern, you don’t just ride dragons—you babysit them, talk to them, and occasionally save the world while trying not to fall off mid-fligh...

Empire Earth asks a bold question: what if we took all of human history and turned it into one very long real-time strategy match? From cavemen to mech-wielding future armies, this...

Released in 2001, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is the black sheep of the family, proudly marching to a different beat. Shifting focus from deep role-playing to squad-based...

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone brings the wizarding world to life with a mix of exploration, puzzles, and light action that feels appropriately magical. It captures the sens...

Independence War 2: Edge Of Chaos refines its predecessor’s ideas into a more open-ended and player-driven experience. Trading, piracy, and exploration play a much larger rol...