abandonware games sorted by popularity

The Legacy: Realm of Terror is a first-person view survival horror RPG set in the modern world, in a haunted house. The Legacy was developed by Magnetic Scrolls and published by Mi...

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...

Before Doomguy started ripping and tearing, there was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. A stealth game where sneaking is mandatory, disguises are fashionable, and stabbing Nazis is encour...

Power Drift feels like a rollercoaster decided it wanted to be a racing game. The tracks are tilted, twisted, and occasionally seem designed by an architect who had a personal grud...

Before its sequel, there was Dark Reign: The Future of War (1997), a forward-thinking RTS that introduced mechanics ahead of its time, like customizable AI scripts for units. The r...

Knight Orc (1987, DOS/Mac) flips the fantasy script: you’re not the hero, you’re the orc. Tired of being slaughtered by noble knights, you decide it’s payback tim...

Deskmate is a software suite developed by Tandy Corporation that provided a graphical user interface (GUI) and a set of applications for personal computers. It was often bundled wi...

Often hailed as the best of the trilogy, Star Trail doubles down on everything its predecessor attempted—and somehow makes it all smoother. The world feels richer, the quests...

This one’s a flight sim for people who think Top Gun didn’t have enough fuel gauges. 1942: The Pacific Air War puts you in the cockpit of World War II fighter planes, c...

Incursion is a modern love letter to classic tactical RPGs, clearly inspired by tabletop rulesets and games like early Fallout. It throws you into a turn-based world where position...

In Crazy Nick’s Parlor Games with Laura Bow, the famous young detective swaps clues for checkers, backgammon, and card tables. The change of pace is gentle—no bodies to...

Fievel's back, and this time it’s personal. An American Tail: Fievel Goes West lets you step into the little cowboy boots of everyone’s favorite Russian mouse as he tri...

Fade to Black (1995) aims high and mostly lands on its feet, delivering a cinematic science-fiction adventure that feels ambitious even today. As a sequel to Flashback, it keeps th...

John Madden Football was the first of a series of american football sports games sponsored by the coach of the same name. The first John Madden Football is an abandoned game develo...

Deus Ex is a critically acclaimed action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released in 2000 and was designed by Warren Spect...

Before heroes had inventory screens and voice acting, there was Adventure in Serenia, the lovechild of a text parser and a fever dream. Released in 1982, this proto-graphic adventu...

Welltris is a puzzle video game designed by Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris. Released in 1989, Welltris offers a fresh take on the block-dropping mechanics of Tetris, expand...