abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1989 for DOS, Poker Relay (also known as 9 Poker) is less a glamorous casino sim and more a smoky backroom full of pixelated cards and questionable programming. You get...

DBGL is a free and open-source frontend for DOSBox available for many platforms, developed in Java.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game from 1989 takes the same beloved film and asks a crucial question: what if archaeology required more jumping? This adaptation tr...

American Conquest is the kind of game that throws hundreds of little soldiers at you and says, "Good luck, General!" Set during the early colonization of the Americas, this RTS ble...

Strap in and squint at the horizon—Advanced Tactical Fighter 2 wants you to dogfight like it’s the Cold War and your joystick is a weapon of mass confusion. Released in...

Toobin is an abandoned action game developed by Domark Software and released in 1989. Toobin runs on DOS but was also published for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Game...

You’re a teenage wizard in college. There are spells, parties, potions, and more double entendres than a ‘90s teen comedy. Spellcasting 101 doesn’t take itself se...

Released in 1984, Lords of Midnight is one of those rare games that feels more like a living legend than a product. Blending strategy, role-playing, and a kind of emergent storytel...

By the time Exile III: Ruined World arrived in 1997, the series knew exactly what it wanted to be—and it delivered with confidence. This installment expands the scope dramati...

Inspector Gadget: Global Terror! takes everyone’s favorite bionic klutz and hands him a globe-trotting mission to stop M.A.D.—which is roughly as risky as giving a todd...

Ultima 2 asks the pressing question: what if you mixed time travel with fantasy and a truly mean sorceress named Minax? The answer is chaos. You’ll bounce between eras—...

Army Men 2 doubles down on everything from the first game - more weapons, more plastic carnage, more trips to “The Real World” where you fight in bathtubs and backyards...

Imagine Doom and Ultima Underworld had a low-budget child who was homeschooled in a basement filled with Mountain Dew cans. That’s Amulets & Armor. A mix of first-person ...

Xenon, released in 1988, was a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by The Bitmap Brothers. Xenon was initially released for the Commodore 64, and later, it was p...

Fish or be fished could be the motto of Bass Duel (1993), a competitive angling game that pits you against a friend or an AI in a fight to the last splash. Strategy is key: where t...

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...

Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans is one of gaming’s most famous “what could have been” stories. Designed as a point-and-click adventure set in the Warcraft ...

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 ...

Icewind Dale arrived in 2000 as a frosty sibling to the Baldur's Gate formula, trading political intrigue for glorious dungeon crawling in the forgotten corners of the Forgotten Re...

Archon Ultra is what happens when you smash chess into an arcade cabinet and call it a day. This updated version of the original Archon throws in jazzed-up graphics and faster game...

A sequel to 25th Anniversary, Star Trek: Judgment Rites (1993, DOS) is peak interactive Trek. The storytelling is sharper, the graphics improved, and the voice acting — yes, ...