abandonware games sorted by popularity

Sleuth: A Murder Mystery is a 1983 detective game that puts the player in the role of an investigator trying to solve a murder through deduction and careful examination of evidence...

Faces Tris 3 (1990) takes a familiar concept and gives it a slightly unsettling twist. Yes, it’s a falling-blocks puzzle game, but instead of abstract shapes, you’re st...

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...

Dangerous Dave: Dave Goes Nutz! is what happens when a platformer drinks too much coffee. The pace is frantic, the enemies relentless, and the levels filled with hazards that seem ...

Shadow of the Comet is a 1993 adventure game steeped in cosmic horror, mystery, and the unsettling fiction of H. P. Lovecraft. Players follow journalist John Parker as he investiga...

Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans is one of gaming’s most famous “what could have been” stories. Designed as a point-and-click adventure set in the Warcraft ...

Few games from 1994 dared to ask the real question: “What if you gave an axe to someone with absolutely no training and dropped them into a dungeon with the reflexes of a slo...

Subtrade: Return to Irata is a space trading adventure that combines exploration, commerce, and the ever-present temptation to become considerably richer than you were five minutes...

Borland Reflex was a relational database management system (RDBMS) developed by Borland International, a software company that was prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. Reflex was rele...

Arachne is a graphical web browser for DOS. Arachne was developed by Michal Polák and released in the early 1990s as a text-mode web browser with limited graphical capabilit...

In 1986, Hacker arrived with a premise that felt thrillingly dangerous at the time: you, alone, tapping into secret computer systems and uncovering conspiracies. No explosions, no ...

Released in 1987, Laser Surgeon: The Microscopic Mission offers one of gaming's more unusual premises by shrinking players down for a medical adventure inside the human body. Inste...

Unnecessary Roughness takes American football and gives it a slightly rougher, more arcade-like edge. Released in 1993, it doesn’t aim for pure simulation, instead focusing on fa...

Mindshadow presents a mysterious adventure in which the protagonist awakens with no memory and must gradually reconstruct his identity by exploring an unfamiliar world. The game co...

Murders in Venice sends players into the atmospheric world of Venetian mystery, where beautiful surroundings conceal a dangerous investigation. Players explore locations, question ...

Night Raid is a 1992 action game that puts the player into a dangerous nighttime mission where enemies, darkness, and poor life choices are likely to be waiting around every corner...

F/A-18 Korea is a serious combat flight simulator for players who enjoy the idea of flying a modern fighter while simultaneously managing a rather intimidating collection of button...

X-Men 2: The Fall of the Mutants is a curious blend of action and light strategy, where Marvel’s famous mutants get to stretch their powers across a series of loosely connected m...

Space Invaders 2001 revisits the classic alien-shooting formula with a more modern presentation and updated gameplay. The basic objective remains wonderfully uncomplicated: control...

Galactic Battle is a straightforward space shooter that comes from the proud tradition of “tiny ship versus unreasonable number of aliens.” The premise is simple: you p...

By 1989, Dragon’s Lair had already become legendary in arcades, so its DOS port had a lot to live up to. Spoiler: it couldn’t quite match the arcade’s gorgeous la...

Dalek Attack is the digital embodiment of Doctor Who’s “run for your life” mantra—except here, you can also shoot back. Playing as the Doctor or one of his ...

Released in 1989 for DOS and Mac, The Transinium Challenge is a classic TNG-era adventure game with a wholesome dose of techno-babble. You guide Picard and the crew through an inve...

F-15 Strike Eagle is one of those games that practically defined what a combat flight simulator should be in the 1980s. It drops you into the cockpit of the legendary F-15 and tell...

The Fourth Protocol turns Frederick Forsyth's Cold War thriller into a computer strategy and espionage experience where information can be considerably more dangerous than bullets....

Fancy saving a kingdom from impending doom in exactly 100 in-game days? Challenge of the Five Realms (1992) offers just that, blending RPG exploration with a looming deadline and s...

Joust VGA updates the classic arcade formula with improved visuals while preserving the frantic gameplay that made the original memorable. Released in 1990, the game challenges pla...

Redneck Rampage is a 1997 first-person shooter that takes the genre into deliberately ridiculous rural territory. Players battle through bizarre environments filled with hostile re...

Chewy: Esc from F5 is a point-and-click adventure starring Chewy, an unlikely hero caught up in a strange science-fiction comedy. Exploration, conversations, inventory puzzles, and...

Primal Rage is a 1995 fighting game that replaces traditional martial artists with enormous prehistoric creatures battling for dominance in a post-apocalyptic world. Players choose...