abandonware games sorted by popularity

Battlespire is the weird, dark cousin of the Elder Scrolls family - the one who shows up late to the reunion with a sword and no pants. This first-person RPG strips out all the com...

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...

In this 1987 DOS game, you delve into a dungeon filled with traps and monsters. Solve puzzles, defeat enemies, and uncover the secrets of the forge. It's like playing Dungeons &...

If you ever wanted to play a video game that doubles as a philosophical think piece, A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) is your ride. Released for DOS and Macintosh, this is one of Inf...

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...

In King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne, King Graham trades royal paperwork for a perilous journey to find the woman destined to become his queen. The adventure expands upon its p...

Over the Reich is a 1996 strategy game set during the Second World War, focusing on aerial operations and the difficult decisions involved in planning military campaigns. Players c...

Marathon 2: Durandal builds confidently upon the original by refining the action, expanding the story, and introducing multiplayer features that became legendary among fans. The ca...

Elevator is one of those early arcade-style games that sounds boring on paper and becomes oddly stressful in practice. You’re navigating elevators, rescuing people, and avoid...

In Gengis Khan, you’re not just playing history—you’re rewriting it with pixelated armies. This 1989 Koei classic lets you lead the great Mongol conqueror (or oth...

Blackthorne (1994) is what happens when a '90s action hero gets lost in a side-scrolling alien world and decides to shoot everything until it makes sense. You’re Kyle, a shot...

Styx is a compact arcade-style adventure built around exploration, hazards, and the sort of unforgiving design that older computer games considered perfectly normal. The action tak...

Released in 2003 for Windows XP, Babylon 5: I've Found Her is the kind of fan-made game that makes you question whether it’s actually fan-made or secretly a pilot for a new s...

Few games let you climb the criminal ladder with as much style as King of Chicago. Instead of saving kingdoms, you negotiate with gangsters, make shady deals, and try to survive th...

DuckTales: The Quest for Gold takes everyone’s favorite miserly duck, Scrooge McDuck, and sends him globetrotting for treasure. It’s part platformer, part management si...

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...

7 Colors is one of those puzzle games that sounds simple on paper but ends up consuming your entire afternoon before you even realize it. Released in 1991 for DOS, it throws you in...

Not every game involves saving kingdoms or defeating monsters, and Magic: The Gathering Interactive Encyclopedia proudly embraces a different mission. This software serves as a com...

_Jetset_, released in 1982, belongs to the pioneering era of computer gaming when developers worked wonders with limited technology. The game combines arcade-style action with fast...

The Great Giana Sisters is a colorful platformer that became famous for wearing its Mario-like influences rather boldly, while still developing its own distinctive personality. The...

With a title like Game Over, you almost expect the game to greet you with a shrug and a polite apology. Instead, it throws players into a strange sci-fi action adventure filled wit...

With a title like Pray for Death, you know you’re not signing up for a cheerful platformer. This is a fighting game with a gothic, heavy-metal aesthetic that screams 1996. It...

Sid Meier's Covert Action is a 1990 DOS espionage game that throws players into the glamorous world of international spying, where gathering information is only slightly less dange...

Spirit of Excalibur is a 1990 adventure game inspired by Arthurian legend, placing the player in the middle of a kingdom where knights, politics, magic, and treachery are all compe...

Expectations were understandably enormous for Master of Orion 3, a sequel to one of strategy gaming's most beloved series. The game introduces ambitious ideas, including highly aut...

Released in 1984 for DOS, Sorcerer is Infocom at its most mischievous. You play an apprentice wizard who wakes up from a hangover only to find your mentor missing and reality sligh...

If you’ve ever stared at a Monopoly board and thought, “This needs more spreadsheets,” then Oligopoly is basically your spiritual home. Released in 1987 for DOS, ...

Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Dark Forces II continues Kyle Katarn's story while transforming the series into a more ambitious 3D action adventure. Released in 1997, it introduces light...

Total Eclipse is an early 3D action game that gives the player a first-person view of a mysterious environment filled with exploration, hazards, and rather intimidating architectur...

Outpost is a 1994 science-fiction strategy and management game that asks players to establish a human colony far from Earth, which immediately raises several questions about transp...