abandonware games sorted by popularity

Half comic book, half arcade game, Batman: The Caped Crusader (1988) offers a delightfully weird aesthetic with its paneled visual style and pulp serial vibe. You’ll punch, p...

F-19 Stealth Fighter is all about sneaking in, doing your job, and getting out before anyone realizes what just happened. Instead of brute-force dogfighting, this game focuses on s...

Released in 1994, All New World of Lemmings gives our suicidal little friends a new lease on life... and new outfits! The puzzles are tougher, the graphics are cleaner, and the fru...

Released in 1995, Lemmings 3D boldly transported the beloved puzzle series into a fully three-dimensional world. The familiar objective remains unchanged, but rotating the camera a...

Italicized title: Jack Nicklaus' Unlimited Golf & Course Design. More than a sports simulation, this title became a toolbox for golf fans eager to build and share their dream c...

Blasteroids is a video game developed and released by Atari, Inc. in 1987. It's a sequel to the classic arcade game Asteroids, which was released in 1979. In Blasteroids, players c...

Heimdall 2: Into the Hall of Worlds expands on the original with more content and a broader scope, as if the developers decided one world was simply not enough. The gameplay remain...

Released in 1987, Falcon is the kind of flight simulator that politely informs you, within minutes, that you are not nearly as smart as you thought. This isn’t an arcade joyr...

Pub Pool brings billiards into the cozy, slightly smoky world of the British pub, although the computer naturally leaves out the sticky tables and mysterious carpet stains. The gam...

Ugh! answers the eternal question: what if a stone-age delivery service were the basis for an entire video game? You play as a caveman whose main skills include grunting, flying a ...

Populous 2: Trials of the Olympian Gods expands the original god simulation concept by adding mythology, new powers, and even greater control over the world. Players take on the ro...

A text adventure with just enough graphics to remind you what year it is, The Pawn (1986, DOS) wraps you in a fantasy world where the puzzles are clever and the parser occasionally...

Hexxagon takes a simple concept and turns it into something surprisingly engaging. The rules are easy to grasp, but mastering them requires a bit more finesse, especially when faci...

Tank controls + polar bears + Cold War vibes = Arctic Fox. In this early vehicular combat sim, you're piloting a futuristic snow tank across an icy wasteland to stop some aliens or...

In Gengis Khan, you’re not just playing history—you’re rewriting it with pixelated armies. This 1989 Koei classic lets you lead the great Mongol conqueror (or oth...

There’s something oddly admirable about a game that hands you a polyester-clad disaster like Larry and says, “Go on, make him succeed.” Leisure Suit Larry 1: In t...

Spirit of Excalibur is a 1990 adventure game inspired by Arthurian legend, placing the player in the middle of a kingdom where knights, politics, magic, and treachery are all compe...

You thought the first one was hard? Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty laughs at your pain and then asks you to infiltrate a Gestapo HQ with a knife and a prayer. This standalone e...

Fast Food Dizzy, released in 1989 for DOS, is exactly as chaotic as the title suggests. Starring the famously round egg hero, the game drops Dizzy into a world where food falls fro...

Before there was Capitalism 2, there was Capitalism Plus, which basically took the original and added a few bells, whistles, and ways to fail spectacularly. It’s like being h...

Released in 1988 for DOS, this game lets you drive monster trucks across deserts, swamps, and icy wastelands with all the grace of a drunken forklift. It’s less about speed a...

Joan of Arc places players in the role of the legendary French heroine during one of history's most turbulent conflicts. Released in 1989, this strategy game blends military planni...

In Curse of Enchantia, a young boy is whisked away to a magical world full of bizarre creatures, tricky puzzles, and an alarming number of ways to die. The game’s whimsical a...

Arkanoid: Doh It Again revisits the classic brick-breaking formula with the familiar paddle, ball and increasingly fragile-looking collection of blocks. The objective remains wonde...

By the time Duke Nukem II rolled around, Duke had found his groove—and his ego. The gameplay is tighter, the explosions bigger, and the quips slightly more self-aware. It&rsq...

Operation Getafix (1989) is what happens when you turn a beloved comic series into a game with the precision of a wild boar wearing gloves. You play as Asterix on a quest to help G...

Tomb Raider II takes Lara Croft on another globe-spanning adventure, expanding the original formula with new locations, vehicles and more elaborate environments. Venice, Tibet and ...

Stronghold is a medieval strategy game that puts you in charge of castles, armies, and enough political trouble to make a peaceful life in the countryside seem terribly overrated. ...

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 ...

Based on the cult fantasy novels by Roger Zelazny, 9 Princes in Amber is a 1985 text adventure that assumes two things: you’ve read the books, and you enjoy typing things lik...