abandonware games sorted by popularity

Dehumanizing offices? Check. Depressing environment? Check. No windows in the whole place? Check. Good, I'm ready to exploit my workers and become great entrepreneur. All of this thanks to Free Enterprise, a simulation for Windows by Tsunami Media, published in 1996.

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 released in the mid-1980s as a graphical database software primarily targeted at business and professional users.

Frederik Pohl's Gateway is one of the best abandoned adventures games from Legend Entertainment. Gateway is an interactive fiction with graphics and an improved interface (unusual for IFs), based on the Frederik Pohl's novel Gateway. Tt was designed by Michael Verdu and Glen R. Dahlgren and published by Legend Entertainment in 1992.

Altered Beast is a classic side-scrolling beat 'em up arcade game developed and published by Sega. It was originally released in arcades in 1988 and later ported to various home consoles, including the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis.Players control a resurrected centurion who battles through five levels filled with undead creatures and other mythical beas...

Ys: The Vanished Omens (also known as The Ancient Land of Ys) is an abandoned top-down open-world action RPG designed by Masaya Hashimoto, developed by Nihon Falcom and released by Kyodai Software Marketing for DOS in 1989. Ys: The Vanished Omens was published (earlier) for quite a few other home computers and console.

Dig Dug is a classic maze arcade action game that was first released by Namco in 1982 as a coin-op and later for a number of other systems. The gameplay of Dig Dug involves digging tunnels through the earth to reach and defeat the various creatures that inhabit the underground maze. The player has an air pump, which he can use to inflate the monste...

Afterlife is a simulation strategy game developed and published by LucasArts. It was released in 1996 for Microsoft Windows and later made available on other platforms. The game was designed by Michael Stemmle and was known for its unique take on the simulation genre.Afterlife puts players in the role of a semi-divine being responsible for developi...

Alien Trilogy is a first-person shooter video game released in 1996 for various platforms, including the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and MS-DOS. Developed by Probe Entertainment and published by Acclaim Entertainment, the game is based on the first three films in the Alien franchise. The game's narrative loosely follows the storyline of these mo...

Ascendancy is a science fiction themed turn-based strategy game developed by The Logic Factory and released in 1995 for DOS. Ascendancy is a classic 4X game (eXpand, eXplore, eXploit, eXterminate), similar to Master of Orion, yet with a few differences such as a technology tree.

Battle Arena Toshinden was the first game in the Toshinden series and was originally released for the Sony PlayStation in 1995 and later for DOS. Battle Arena Toshinden introduced 3D graphics to the fighting game genre, allowing characters to move in a three-dimensional space.The game featured a diverse roster of eight playable characters, eac...

Castlevania, originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, was developed and published by Konami. The game was known in Japan as Akumajo Dracula (Devil's Castle Dracula) and was later renamed Castlevania for its North American release. In Castlevania, players take on the role of Simon Belmont, a vampire hunter from the Bel...

Maniac Mansion is one of the most famous point-and-click adventure games developed by Lucasfilm Games, designed by Ron Gilbert (who later created Monkey Island) and Gary Winnick. The story is a blend of old sci-fi and horror B-movie elements. Players can choose between several characters, each with unique abilities useful for solving various puzzle...

Starflight is a classic space exploration and role-playing video game released in 1986 by Binary Systems and published by Electronic Arts. It is known for its innovative gameplay, as well as its open-ended approach to space exploration and storytelling.The game is set in a massive, procedurally generated universe with thousands of star systems to e...

Blade Runner is one of those point & click adventure games that somewhat manages to fully capture the spirit of a cult movie without copying the original plot. Fans of the Blade Runner movie will enjoy this game, even without Harrison Ford. Blade Runner was developed by Westwood Studios and released in 1997 by Virgin.

Hugo's House of Horrors is an adventure game developed by David P. Gray and released in the early 1990s. The game is a text-based adventure with simple graphics, and it gained popularity for its witty and often tongue-in-cheek approach to the horror genre.The story of the game revolves around the main character, Hugo, who receives a letter from his...

Thief: The Dark Project is a first-person stealth video game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. Released in 1998, it is considered a groundbreaking title in the stealth genre and has had a significant influence on subsequent games in the genre. The game is set in a dark, medieval, steampunk world. Players ta...

Atlantis: The Lost Tales is a graphic adventure game developed by Cryo Interactive and released in 1997. It is the first in a series of games set around the legendary lost city of Atlantis. You play as Seth, a young hero who becomes entangled in the political and mysterious happenings of the city. Seth is tasked with finding the missing queen,...