abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1991, Fantasy World Dizzy is a whimsical adventure that proves even an egg can carry the weight of an entire fantasy quest. The game blends puzzle-solving with explorat...

Before Football Manager consumed the souls of soccer nerds everywhere, there was Club Football: The Manager. It’s all spreadsheets, transfers, and managing egos with egos. Th...

Evets is a puzzle game that proves simplicity can be deceptive. With minimal graphics and a straightforward premise, it invites you in gently before revealing its true complexity. ...

Onslaught (1990, DOS) takes the classic top-down shoot-and-survive formula and injects it with an enthusiasm that borders on reckless. Hordes of enemies sprint at you like they&rsq...

Quest for Glory 1: So You Want to Be a Hero is a 1989 adventure RPG that asks a deceptively simple question: what happens when an inexperienced adventurer decides to become a hero?...

This 1992 casino sim for DOS drops you into the neon-soaked carpet jungle of the Four Queens Hotel in Vegas. There’s no plot, no hero’s journey - just you, a digital ba...

In Lost Adventures of Kroz, ASCII characters do all the heavy lifting. No sprites, no polygons — just your imagination and a fearless “@” symbol running for its l...

The name Carnage says it all—this top-down racer is less about precision driving and more about smashing into your enemies until they resemble digital roadkill. It’s fa...

When Wayne Gretzky Hockey hit DOS in 1989, it set a standard for hockey games that many would follow. Fast, fluid, and surprisingly tactical, it captured the feel of ice hockey wit...

Super Solvers: Spellbound! turns spelling practice into a colorful adventure where correct answers are the difference between progressing and getting stuck. Rather than presenting ...

TomeNET (Troubles of Middle Earth, Net) is an online, multiplayer rogue-like game set in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. It’s a persistent-world game inspired by ...

History lessons become unexpectedly adventurous in Mario's Time Machine, where Bowser has stolen priceless historical artifacts and scattered them across different eras. Players tr...

Horror fans found plenty to appreciate in 1989's Last Half of Darkness, an adventure that relies on eerie atmosphere rather than constant action. Exploring haunted locations, solvi...

Crime City is an isometric action game that throws you into the role of a lone enforcer cleaning up the streets. Armed with a trusty weapon and a questionable sense of self-preserv...

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...

Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula expands the original space exploration formula with a larger galaxy, new worlds, alien civilizations, trading opportunities, and anot...

A gentle adventure inspired by the animated film, Once Upon a Forest (1995, DOS) delivers an eco-friendly story wrapped in side-scrolling gameplay. You guide three tiny forest crea...

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...

Super Stardust is a fast-paced space shooter that throws the player into a colorful galaxy filled with enemies, asteroids, power-ups, and the sort of screen activity that makes bli...

Before there was Baldur’s Gate or Skyrim, there was DND. This 1984 DOS dungeon crawler is as old-school as it gets, complete with ASCII graphics, endless hallways, and monste...

Hardball! is where the series begins, and it carries the slightly rough charm of a pioneer finding its footing. The mechanics are simple, but they establish a foundation that futur...

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games (now known as LucasArts). It was first released in 1988 for various p...

IVAN (Iter Vehemens ad Necem) is one of the strangest and deepest roguelikes ever created. Released in 2001, it combines brutal difficulty with extraordinary detail, from limb dama...

Jumpman Lives! brings back the legendary platforming hero for a new set of challenges in this 1991 sequel. Building upon the foundation of the original, the game introduces fresh l...

Dark Ages Volume III: Dungeons of Doom closes out the trilogy with—you guessed it—more doom, dungeons, and ways to fall off platforms you swear you landed on. The serie...

Acheton (1987, DOS) is one of those text adventures where the game cheerfully tries to kill you every five minutes — and does so with words. You're tossed into a sprawling, b...

If Doom and Laser Tag had a baby raised by dial-up modems, it would be 3D Cyber Blaster. Released in 1992, this shooter has you blasting neon enemies in a world that looks like a T...