abandonware games sorted by popularity

This one's not for the faint of heart. Conflict in Vietnam tries to simulate the complexity and chaos of guerrilla warfare in a game where every click can cost lives. The graphics ...

Unreal Gold is the polished, expanded version of a game that already made a significant impact. Released in 2000, it combines atmospheric exploration with intense action, creating ...

Independence War takes space combat seriously, almost stubbornly so. Instead of arcade-style dogfights, it presents a Newtonian flight model where momentum, inertia, and positionin...

Kangaroo transforms a determined mother kangaroo into one of gaming's most energetic heroes as she hops through colorful stages to rescue her kidnapped joey. Along the way she punc...

By the time Lords of Midnight: The Citadel arrived in 1995, it carried the weight of a classic on its shoulders. Rather than reinventing the original, it refines and reinterprets i...

Xtrek is a multiplayer-focused space simulation that captures the spirit of cooperative and competitive gameplay long before it became mainstream. Players pilot ships, complete obj...

In Contraption Zack, you play as a kid with more mechanical gadgets than common sense. Your job? Fix a series of increasingly absurd machines in a puzzle platformer that’s eq...

UnReal World is a survival experience that takes its premise very seriously, perhaps more seriously than you expected. First released in 1992 and evolving over time, it places you ...

Forget modern physics—Caverns of Kroz lets you destroy walls with whips. Yes, whips. This 1989 ASCII masterpiece from Apogee is part puzzle, part action, and all danger. You ...

Blood Money (1990) answers the question: what if every level in a shoot-'em-up was a different kind of sci-fi fever dream? You fly through alien-infested caverns, collect cash, and...

If pro wrestling in the '80s had a fever dream after drinking too much neon paint, it would be called Bop'N Wrestle (1988, DOS). You play as Gorgeous Greg, who’s about as gor...

Xixit is a puzzle game that feels like it is constantly trying to outwit you, presenting challenges that require both logic and a bit of creative thinking. It does not rely on flas...

Based on the popular D&D module, Curse of the Azure Bonds puts you in control of a party of adventurers cursed with magical tattoos that force them into dangerous quests. You&r...

Before realistic fighting games, there was Boxer Rebellion—a 1982 title so primitive, it makes Pong look flashy. It’s boxing with fewer rules and more pixels per punch....

Van Buren was a science fiction post-apocalyptic RPG being developed by Black Isle Studios and never published. Van Buren was the direct sequel to Fallout 2, part of the Fallout fr...

If you thought Norse mythology needed more monochrome graphics, Caves of Thor (1989) has you covered. It’s an early Apogee game, meaning it’s tough, quirky, and uses le...

With its groundbreaking graphics and unforgettable atmosphere, Mechwarrior 2: 31st Century Combat became one of the defining mech simulators of the 1990s. Piloting enormous BattleM...

Constructor is a simulation and strategy video game developed by System 3 and first released in 1997. In the game, players take on the role of a property developer with the goal of...

More smoke-filled backrooms than a noir film and enough slot machines to trigger déjà vu—Caesars Palace is your low-res Vegas getaway. You're given a pile of ch...

A text adventure with just enough graphics to remind you what year it is, The Pawn (1986, DOS) wraps you in a fantasy world where the puzzles are clever and the parser occasionally...

Teen Agent is a charming, tongue-in-cheek adventure about a teenager recruited to save the world because, well, why not? With its colorful art, witty dialogue, and delightfully abs...