abandonware games sorted by popularity

In King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne, King Graham trades royal paperwork for a perilous journey to find the woman destined to become his queen. The adventure expands upon its p...

Micheal Jordan in Flight takes basketball away from the court and into the sky, creating an unusual arcade experience centered around the legendary player. The concept is gloriousl...

Planet of Lust is a 1989 DOS adventure game known for its science-fiction setting and adult-oriented themes. Players explore an alien world filled with unusual encounters, puzzles,...

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...

Quest for Glory 2: Trial by Fire continues the adventures of the aspiring hero introduced in the first game, sending the player to the exotic desert land of Shapeir. Released in 19...

Omnicron Conspiracy (1989, DOS) is a detective adventure wrapped in a cozy sci-fi blanket. You play as a Galactic Patrol agent solving crimes across alien worlds, all rendered in c...

Horror fans found plenty to appreciate in 1989's Last Half of Darkness, an adventure that relies on eerie atmosphere rather than constant action. Exploring haunted locations, solvi...

Heirs to the Throne is one of those strategy titles that feels like it was designed by someone who truly enjoys watching players sweat over decisions. Set in a vaguely medieval pol...

Galdregon's Domain drops players into a fantasy world that feels like it was stitched together from dungeon maps, spellbooks, and a suspiciously large number of monsters. The premi...

The Clue! turns the classic murder-mystery board game concept into a computer adventure with investigation, deduction, and a suitably suspicious collection of characters. The famil...

Back in 1983, IBM Centipede brought arcade bug-blasting straight to home computers, allowing office machines to moonlight as insect exterminators. This adaptation of the arcade cla...

If you ever wanted to play a video game that doubles as a philosophical think piece, A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) is your ride. Released for DOS and Macintosh, this is one of Inf...

Star Crusader is a 1994 first-person space combat game that puts the player in the cockpit of a futuristic fighter and sends them into the middle of a large interstellar conflict. ...

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...

Silpheed is a 1988 DOS shoot-'em-up originally known for its impressive use of polygonal enemy designs and fast-paced space combat. Players pilot a futuristic fighter through a ser...

Indianapolis 500 in 1989 was one of the earliest racing simulators to take itself very seriously, and that seriousness paid off. Rather than arcade thrills, it focused on realism, ...

If you’ve ever wanted to play interstellar Monopoly while arguing with alien neighbors, Deadlock: Planetary Conquest is your ticket. Released in 1996, this strategy gem tosse...

Released in 1993, Hannibal is a strategy game that asks you to think like a military commander facing impossible odds—and occasionally impossible interface decisions. Inspire...

Maniac Mansion changed adventure games forever by introducing multiple playable characters, each with unique abilities that influence puzzle solutions and story outcomes. The bizar...

Autodesk Animator Pro was a serious animation package for DOS at a time when creating computer animation required considerably more patience than it does today. It provided tools f...

Dylan Dog: Through the Looking Glass takes the surrealism of the comics and dives headfirst into nightmare territory. Imagine Carroll’s Wonderland rewritten by Lovecraft and ...

Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 throws you into a gloriously over-the-top sci-fi world where guns, swords, aliens and scantily clad warriors somehow make perfect sense. You play as Julie, ...

Santa Paravia en Fiumaccio is a 1988 DOS adaptation of the classic economic and political strategy game in which players attempt to rule a small Italian principality. The objective...

Imagine Doom got abducted by aliens, experimented on, and sent back to Earth with a case of amnesia. That’s Alien Cabal (1997). It’s a weird mix of FPS action and X-Fil...

Released in 1987, this is less of a simulator and more of a fever dream where you pilot a flying box over a grid pretending to be terrain. 3-D Helicopter Simulator was ambitious fo...

Ragnarok is a 1993 fantasy role-playing game that combines exploration, combat, character development, and Norse mythology into a substantial adventure. Players guide their charact...

Trolls is a colourful platform adventure that puts you in control of a small hero travelling through a succession of whimsical environments. The game is built around classic platfo...

War in Middle Earth brings Tolkien-inspired fantasy warfare to the computer, letting players influence the great struggle between the forces of good and evil. Released in 1989, the...

Sleuth: A Murder Mystery is a 1983 detective game that puts the player in the role of an investigator trying to solve a murder through deduction and careful examination of evidence...

Stonekeep is a first-person fantasy dungeon crawler with an appropriately unpleasant central premise: the kingdom has been attacked, evil has taken over, and you are expected to cl...