abandonware games sorted by popularity

Galactix continues the grand space-shooter tradition with enthusiasm and a healthy disregard for your survival odds. You control a small but determined ship facing waves of enemy f...

If you’ve ever thought The Lord of the Rings needed more ASCII and fewer hobbit feelings, Angband is your jam. Since 1992, this dungeon-crawling roguelike has been throwing p...

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...

Prehistorik 2 builds on the first game’s formula but smooths out the rough edges. The controls are tighter, the levels more inventive, and the humor dialed up a notch. Once a...

By the time Exile III: Ruined World arrived in 1997, the series knew exactly what it wanted to be—and it delivered with confidence. This installment expands the scope dramati...

If you ever wanted to explore endless, procedurally generated tunnels filled with monsters, traps, and the occasional existential crisis, Dungeon Crawl is your kind of misery. Rele...

Ultima 2 asks the pressing question: what if you mixed time travel with fantasy and a truly mean sorceress named Minax? The answer is chaos. You’ll bounce between eras—...

Released in 1993 for DOS, A320 Airbus is less “Top Gun” and more “Intro to Aeronautical Bureaucracy.” It’s a flight simulator so realistic, even real ...

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...

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game from 1989 takes the same beloved film and asks a crucial question: what if archaeology required more jumping? This adaptation tr...

Ever wanted to be responsible for ending the world in fewer than ten keypresses? B-1 Nuclear Bomber (1981) gives you that chance, wrapping global annihilation in glorious monochrom...

Ferrari Formula 1, released in 1989 for DOS, is a racing game that proudly wears its license like a badge of honor. You’re here to drive Ferraris, go fast, and pretend you un...

Think Indiana Jones meets 90s daytime TV. Amazon: Guardians of Eden is a cinematic point-and-click adventure filled with jungles, conspiracies, and more hair gel than any explorer ...

Released in 1992, Barbie for DOS is what happens when someone asks, “What if pink could be a video game?” You play as Barbie on a quest to collect accessories and win K...

Wizardry 2: The Knight of Diamonds takes the classic dungeon crawl and adds a few extra twists, like more mazes to get lost in and puzzles designed to make you question your life c...

Gorillas, also known as "Gorillas.bas," is a turn-based artillery game that was included as a sample program with Microsoft QBasic, an IDE and interpreter for a variant of the...

Based on the fantasy novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Death Gate (1994) throws you into an epic, puzzle-heavy adventure. Imagine Myst, but with more dragons and a script ...

Then there’s Martian Dreams, the Ultima game where you travel to Mars in the 19th century with none other than Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s as delightfully...

Ah, the late '90s: when cars exploded for no reason and acronyms made everything cooler. Axelerator: Have a N.I.C.E. day! is a 1997 Windows racer that asks, “What if racing w...

By 1996, Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition on DOS felt like the veteran fighter returning for one last round. You could finally play as the bosses, which was a childhood dream...

F-15 Strike Eagle III is a combat flight simulation video game released in 1992. It was developed by MicroProse and is the third installment in the F-15 Strike Eagle series. T...

Before Football Manager consumed the souls of soccer nerds everywhere, there was Club Football: The Manager. It’s all spreadsheets, transfers, and managing egos with egos. Th...

Released in 1989, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade takes the film's adventure and translates it into a point-and-click experience with surprising elegance. It captures the charm,...