abandonware games sorted by popularity

Strip Poker: A Sizzling Game of Chance is an early example of the adult computer-game genre, taking ordinary poker and adding a rather more provocative incentive to win. The card g...

Blake Stone: Planet Strike picks up where the first left off — more aliens, more guns, and more corridors that all look suspiciously alike. Released in 1994 for DOS, it&rsquo...

Before its sequel, there was Dark Reign: The Future of War (1997), a forward-thinking RTS that introduced mechanics ahead of its time, like customizable AI scripts for units. The r...

Virus is a fast, strange little arcade game that feels as though someone took a futuristic flying machine, dropped it into a hostile landscape, and then removed any concern for sen...

Released in 1988, Alien Fires 2199 AD looks and plays like someone tried to translate a fever dream into a sci-fi RPG. You control some dude with a chin of steel and a crew that se...

Armaeth: The Lost Kingdom looks like a cousin of Prince of Persia who dropped out of school to study magic mushrooms. You play a vaguely heroic dude exploring a crumbling kingdom f...

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? If that line doesn’t make you want to punch a ninja through a hotdog stand, nothing will. Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja is peak...

South Park: Cartman's Authoritah is a short action game built around the irreverent world of South Park and, naturally, the enormous personality of Eric Cartman. The gameplay throw...

This game is either a delightful brain teaser or a slow descent into madness, depending on how patient you are. 15x15 Picture Puzzle gives you a scrambled mess of tiny square tiles...

In The Tyrants of Thaine, the graphics get a modest upgrade, but the soul remains pure: this is RPG comfort food. You’re once again cast as the world's most overworked advent...

The Operative: No One Lives Forever is a stylish first-person shooter that mixes espionage, comedy, and action with the confidence of a secret agent who has absolutely no intention...

Stronghold is a medieval strategy game that puts you in charge of castles, armies, and enough political trouble to make a peaceful life in the countryside seem terribly overrated. ...

Part puzzle, part platformer, part “what is even happening,” Bombuzal (1989, DOS) is a game where your job is to blow up every bomb on the screen—while not accide...

Scorched 3D is a free and open-source artillery game that serves as a modern adaptation of the classic MS-DOS game Scorched Earth. Developed by Gavin Camp, it was first released in...

Epic Pinball is what happens when a small team says, “Sure, let’s make a pinball game,” and accidentally creates one of the most addictive shareware hits of the d...

Apollo 18: Mission to the Moon (1987) lets you relive the lunar missions in all their... spreadsheet-like glory. This game is as educational as it is punishing; you’ll learn ...

Take the tactical seriousness of Championship Manager and sprinkle on some espresso. Championship Manager Italia gives you control over Italy’s finest (and most temperamental...

Guy Spy and the Crystals of Armageddon is gloriously over-the-top, starring a hero who looks like he walked out of a Saturday morning cartoon and into a global conspiracy. The digi...

African Adventure is one of those games that feels like it was made during a two-hour layover at the airport - but somehow, it works. Set in the savannah, it combines survival, exp...

Questprobe featuring The Hulk is a 1984 adventure game that puts players in control of Marvel’s famously angry green powerhouse. The game combines exploration, puzzles, and probl...

Crystal Caves is a bright, cheerful platformer starring Mylo Steamwitz, an entrepreneur whose business plan involves raiding dangerous alien caves for profit. The levels are full o...

Hocus Pocus is the kind of platformer that seems to run on pure sugar and cheerful chaos. You play as a young wizard with more enthusiasm than common sense, bouncing through colorf...

Total Annihilation is a landmark real-time strategy game that takes large-scale warfare and refuses to keep it small. Players gather resources, construct factories, build armies, a...

Diabolika is a dark, atmospheric adventure with a taste for supernatural trouble and gloomy surroundings. The game places you in a world where strange events are normal and apparen...

Welcome to Z, the real-time strategy game where psychotic robots with British accents duke it out over territory in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Think Command & Conquer if the...

Xargon is a platformer that feels like it was built with equal parts creativity and cheerful chaos. Levels are packed with secrets, strange enemies, and mechanics that sometimes se...

Adapting movies into games is always tricky, but Predator 2 gives it a shot with mixed results. You play as a cop cleaning up the mean streets while occasionally being stalked by t...

The Four Crystals of Trazere is a fantasy strategy and role-playing adventure in which magic, exploration, combat, and tactical planning all collide in a world that seems to have m...

Executive Suite puts you in the shoes of a corporate leader and asks you to juggle ambition, ethics, and profit, usually with conflicting results. It’s a business simulation ...

The Chaos Engine is a wonderfully frantic run-and-gun adventure from the Bitmap Brothers, mixing steampunk imagery with relentless shooting and cooperative action. The setting is s...