Abandonware DOS retro gaming spotlight

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands

Before Wake of the Ravager, there was Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, the first CRPG to bring Athas to life. It was a bold departure from the usual Gold Box formula, with more freedom in exploration and a focus on tactical, grid-based combat. The story throws you into a slave revolt, ...

Baldur's Gate: the game who revitilized CRPGs

Baldur's Gate a fantasy RPG set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe which is regarded as the RPG that brought new life in a dying genre in the late 90s. Baldur's Gate was developed by BioWare and released by Black Isle Studios in 1998 for Windows, Lunux and Mac. Some of ...

Abandonware DOS favorite games from the 2000s

My journey with video games is filled with titles that could easily be considered the best, or at the very least, my personal favorites.Creating a perfect ranking is impossible, and this one certainly isn’t trying to be definitive. Some of these games are widely recognized as milestones ...

Interactive Achievement Awards - 1997

The Interactive Achievement Awards (IAAs), now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards, are an annual awards ceremony honoring outstanding achievements in the video game industry. The IAAs were established by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) in 1998 to recognize excellence in various categories within the gaming ...

Ultima 6: The False Prophet

In Ultima 6, you finally meet the Gargoyles, who aren’t the snarling monsters everyone assumed—they’re just misunderstood neighbors with a different perspective. Cue moral dilemmas and cross-cultural negotiations, sandwiched between dungeon crawls. The game introduces a slick new interface and bigger world to explore, one ...

Abandonware DOS favorite games from the 1990s

Throughout my history with video games, many titles could claim the spot of “the best,” or at least my personal favorite at one point or another.Creating a definitive ranking is nearly impossible—and this list certainly doesn’t pretend to be one. Some of these ...

Daggerfall: the second chapter of the Elder Scrolls

"At last! An RPG done right. From Bethesda this Christmas comes The Elder Scrolls: daggerfall, which is the sequel to The Elder Scrolls: Arena. For way to long RPGs have clung to antiquated design conventions. Nobody seemed prepared to try anything really new, while alleged breakthroughs like Stonekeep were ...

Gauntlet: warrior, wizard, valkyrie, elf

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 gone wrong: everyone wants treasure, no one shares health potions, and someone inevitably shouts, “Wizard needs food, badly!” at ...

1996 in retro gaming: from Diablo to Daggerfall

Thirty years ago — yes, 1996, the year we all discovered that 3D graphics could both amaze us and instantly melt our PCs — computer gaming had finally learned to walk, run, and occasionally trip over its own polygons. The DOS era was still hanging on, Windows 95 was flexing its new ...

Into the past: classic Cyberpunk PC games that still shine

There’s something irresistible about old cyberpunk games. Before neon-drenched trailers and open-world mega-budgets, PC developers in the 90s (and a little beyond) were already hard at work building grimy, paranoid visions of the future. Sure, the pixels were chunky and the interfaces clunky, but the atmosphere? Unmistakable. These ...

Ultima 6 soundtrack added

In Ultima 6, you finally meet the Gargoyles, who aren’t the snarling monsters everyone assumed—they’re just misunderstood neighbors with a different perspective. Cue moral dilemmas and cross-cultural negotiations, sandwiched between dungeon crawls. The game introduces a slick new interface and bigger world to explore, one ...

Dungeons, Dragons and pixels: old games inspired by D&D

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop role-playing game (RPG) that blends storytelling, strategy, and chance. First published in 1974 by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, it has since grown into one of the most popular and influential role-playing games in the world.Over the decades, Dungeons & Dragons ...

Hidden Gems: Forgotten DOS RPGs (not) worth playing

Ultima, Wizardry, Fallout, and Might & Magic are among the most iconic old-school RPGs - titles every RPG fan has either played or at least heard of. However, many role-playing games released in the distant past never gained widespread popularity. Some of the RPGs uploaded today on Abandonware DOS are ...

Castle of the Winds: a classic CRPG for Windows 3.x

Castle of the Winds is a fantasy roguelike role-playing game developed by SaadaSoft in the early 1990s for Windows 3.x.The game features a top-down perspective and incorporates elements of dungeon crawling, exploration, and character development. The game uses a simple turn-based combat system.

Play abandoned roguelike RPGs in your browser

Roguelikes are a fascinating subgenre of role-playing games that have always captured my interest. Defined by features like permadeath and procedurally generated dungeons, roguelikes offer an exceptionally high level of replayability: no two runs are ever the same.The history of roguelikes stretches back to the very early days of ...