abandonware games sorted by popularity

Five-a-side Indoor Soccer is what happens when football trades muddy boots for squeaky sneakers and decides walls are friends, not boundaries. Released in the mid-80s, it captures ...

Push-Push Penguin is an expanded version of the classic Sega's 1982 arcade game Pengo, incorporating features like power-ups, a combo system, and a more diverse array of enemies, b...

Forget piracy—China Sea Trader makes hauling porcelain and spices across 19th-century Asia feel like a cutthroat business. It’s part economic sim, part geography lesson...

Bolo Ball is a DOS game from the mid-1990s. It features a physics-based gameplay where the objective is to knock opponent balls out of an arena. When you start the game, you find y...

Amerzone is like stepping into a dream where logic is optional and atmosphere is everything. You play a journalist unraveling the mystery of a dying explorer’s last journey, ...

In 1999, Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator offered role-playing fans a huge adventure filled with memorable characters and an unusual world divided into layers. Its blend of rea...

Before immersive sims were a buzzword, there was Ultima Underworld. Dropping you into a massive first-person dungeon, it gave players freedom unthinkable at the time. Want to negot...

International Soccer Challenge in 1990 continues the tradition of digital football with a more competitive edge. The pacing is brisk, the mechanics approachable, and the matches of...

Monuments of Mars (1991) is one of those puzzle-platformers where patience is less a virtue and more a survival tool. You’re stranded on Mars, exploring alien ruins filled wi...

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where leather vests are apparently immune to radiation, Bad Blood lets you wander the wasteland deciding whether to be a brute, a brainiac, or a mut...

Combat Chess (1997, Windows XP) takes the cerebral game of kings and adds swords, screams, and shameless violence. Every piece battle-animates into Mortal Kombat-lite fights when y...

By 1996, Legend of the Silver Talisman delivered a more traditional RPG adventure, though with a decidedly old-school feel. It’s a game that doesn’t bother holding your...

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....

By the time Goblins 3 rolls around, the formula gets a shake-up, introducing a single controllable character who can summon others as needed. It’s a clever twist, though it t...

If text adventures are your thing, Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative (1985, DOS) will either delight or destroy you. You type commands to guide Kirk and crew through a no-win sc...

Galaxy is a relic from the early days of PC gaming, when the idea of exploring space could be conveyed with a handful of pixels and a lot of imagination. The gameplay is simple, re...

The Operative: No One Lives Forever is a first-person shooter with stealth gameplay elements, developed by Monolith Productions and released by Fox Interactive in 2000 for Windows,...

Igor: Objective Uikokahonia—or however many vowels you can fit into that kingdom's name—arrived in 1995 as a delightfully oddball adventure game. Its humor leans absurd, its pu...

Borrowed Time is a graphic adventure video game developed and published by Interplay Productions. It was released in 1985 for various platforms, including the Apple Macintosh,...

Dark Designs 2: Closing the Gate picks up right where the first game left off, with your party stumbling into yet another world-threatening mess. The stakes are higher, the enemies...

Anvil of Dawn is what happens when 1995 tries to reinvent the fantasy RPG and ends up creating something strangely beautiful. It’s first-person, it’s real-time, and it&...

Released in 1985, _Jet_ is one of those early flight simulators that reminds players how much imagination was required before photorealistic graphics became the norm. Taking contro...

Dragon Lord (1990) is what happens when you let a fantasy novelist design a strategy game. You’re a would-be sorcerer trying to raise dragons, manage villages, and conquer la...