abandonware games sorted by popularity

Menace is a classic shoot 'em up video game that was developed by DMA Design, a company later known as Rockstar North, and initially released in 1988. The game was originally relea...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is a geopolitical strategy game developed by Chris Crawford and released in 1985. It is considered a classic in the genre of political and strate...

In Lucky Luke (1997, Windows), the fastest gun in the West is also the funniest. Based on the beloved Belgian comic, the game mixes platforming and slapstick as Luke outsmarts band...

Before Command & Conquer, there was Command HQ (1990, DOS/Mac)—an early RTS that said “what if we made World War III playable?” It’s global domination m...

Forget Peter Jackson’s version. CHAMP Kong brings the big ape back to his pixelated roots, where ladders were death traps and barrels were pure evil. This charming homage to ...

If you’ve ever wanted to conquer a fantasy world while feeling like a medieval accountant with anger issues, Warlords 2 has you covered. Released in 1993, it’s a turn-b...

In the 25th century, bureaucracy is still awful—but now you also have laser guns. Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday is a surprisingly solid sci-fi RPG that blends space oper...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a humorous free text adventure game based on the novel of the same name written by Douglas Adams (if you never read it, shame on you!). The ...

Templars, assassins, and a clueless American tourist named George. Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is a 2D point-and-click masterpiece with more intrigue than a Vatican ba...

Space Harrier is a 3rd-person view rail-shooter developed by Sega in 1985. Space Harrier was a hit in the arcades, and later it was converted for a number of platforms, including D...

There was a time when digitized sprites and surprisingly loud crowd noise felt like cutting-edge sports science, and FIFA Soccer 96 proudly lived in that moment. The big selling po...

As sequels go, Serpent Isle is less “more of the same” and more “everything is different, good luck.” Shipwrecked on a strange new land, you’ll deal w...

Rome: Pathway to Power (also known as Rome AD 92) is an abandoned isometric adventure game with strategy elements set in ancient Rome. Rome was developed by Millennium Interactive ...

Rick Dangerous 2 is a clear example of a sequel done right. Developed by Core Design and released in 1990 on a plethora of platforms, Rick Dangerous 2 is a classic platform game wi...

Few adventure games manage to feel as effortlessly cool as Full Throttle. Released in 1995 by LucasArts, it places you in the boots of Ben, the gravel-voiced leader of the Polecats...

Gremlins is what happens when someone decides that cute, chaotic movie creatures should be turned into a game that is slightly less cute and a lot more confusing. In Gremlins, you ...

Berlin 1948 throws you into post-war Germany as a secret agent on a noir-flavored mission through a city drenched in trench coats and suspicion. It’s one part spy thriller, o...

The Colonel's Bequest is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Sierra On-Line. It was released in 1989 for various platforms, including MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST. T...

Before Madden became a household name, 1988 gave us this DOS football classic, where plays are drawn like cave paintings and players move like molasses in January. Yet, for its tim...

In Annals of Rome, you don’t just play history — you command it, badly. This 1988 strategy title lets you take control of the Roman Empire and try to keep it from falli...

MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries is a standalone expansion to MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat, released in 1996 by Activision. Part of the larger BattleTech universe, the game puts pl...

Chicago, 1920s. You’ve got a tommy gun, a fedora, and a score to settle. Capone is part gangster sim, part shooting gallery, and part fever dream. The graphics are muddy, the...

Keys to Maramon is a role-playing game developed by Mindcraft Software and released in 1990 for the Amiga, MS-DOS, and Commodore 64 platforms. The game is set in the same universe ...

In Infidel, you play a not-so-noble adventurer whose moral compass is spinning like a broken ceiling fan. As a treasure-hungry explorer poking around an ancient Egyptian tomb, you ...