abandonware games sorted by popularity

Ah, Death Knights of Krynn—a 1991 RPG where you fight hordes of undead in the Dragonlance universe. SSI’s Gold Box series wasn’t known for holding your hand, and ...

Noctropolis feels like stepping into a fever dream of a comic book you read when you were twelve and maybe shouldn’t have. A surreal noir adventure with gothic heroes, femme ...

Up Periscope! from 1988 lets you take command of a submarine, which sounds exciting until you realize just how much responsibility that entails. Managing depth, speed, and position...

In Gold Rush!, the American dream is alive and well, provided you don’t mind a bit of hardship, questionable decision-making, and the occasional untimely demise. This adventu...

Paperboy was one of (if not THE) arcade hit of 1985. It was developed by Atari for the arcades and later published by Mindscape for DOS in 1988. More conversion were made for quite...

Dark Sun 2: Wake of the Ravager takes the harsh desert world of Athas and turns up the intensity. Building on its predecessor, it offers deeper role-playing, improved combat, and a...

Ah, Chessmaster 3000. The title alone sounds like it should have lasers and robot arms, but what you get is a thoughtful, elegant chess sim that finally brings charisma to the game...

Often overlooked, Falcon AT from 1988 is an interesting hybrid that tries to bridge hardcore simulation with a slightly more accessible presentation. While it still respects the se...

Secret of the Silver Blades is a fantasy RPG set in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons universe, developed and released by SSI Strategic Simulations Inc. in 1990 for DOS, Macintos...

Guardians of Infinity: to Save Kennedy is the sort of time-travel adventure that casually suggests you might want to prevent one of the most infamous assassinations in history befo...

Welltris is a puzzle video game designed by Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris. Released in 1989, Welltris offers a fresh take on the block-dropping mechanics of Tetris, expand...

The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian is a title that feels like it was generated by rolling dice on a fantasy word table, and somehow that’s part of its ...

Amberstar is a fantasy old school RPG very similar to Ultima 6 that uses a top-down view for interiors and small locations and a first person pseudo 3D view for everything else. Un...

If you ever wanted to fly a helicopter that looks like it belongs in a Michael Bay fever dream, Comanche: Maximum Overkill (1992, DOS) is for you. This voxel-powered beast puts you...

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...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Feud is a wonderfully weird strategy game about two rival wizards who absolutely refuse to get along. Each turn, you gather resources, cast spells, and tr...

Framed is a puzzle-platformer that treats each screen like a small mechanical riddle. You guide your character through hazards that feel carefully arranged, almost theatrical in th...