abandonware games sorted by popularity

Phantasie 3: The Wrath of Nikademus continues the fantasy role-playing series with a larger adventure, stronger enemies, and an even greater challenge for returning heroes. Players...

Ford Simulator 3 (1992, DOS) pushes the formula further, polishing visuals and adding enough variety to feel like a modest evolution rather than a simple update. The driving segmen...

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 ...

SimHealth is a 1994 DOS simulation that tackles the complicated subject of healthcare management. Players take on the role of a decision-maker responsible for balancing healthcare ...

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 ...

Released in 1988, Jinxter is a whimsical text adventure overflowing with clever writing, bizarre situations, and puzzles that often seem determined to test the limits of human logi...

Battle Arena Toshinden was the first game in the Toshinden series and was originally released for the Sony PlayStation in 1995 and later for DOS. Battle Arena Toshinden introd...

In Castle Master, you get dropped into a spooky polygonal castle and told, “Figure it out.” And that’s it. Early 3D graphics make every wall look like it was pain...

The Settlers II: Veni, Vidi, Vici takes everything that worked in the original and polishes it until it shines like a freshly forged sword. The graphics are warmer, the maps are bi...

The Aethra Chronicles is a fantasy RPG that leans heavily into its world-building, offering players a rich setting filled with lore, quests, and plenty of opportunities to get lost...

Space Quest 6: Roger Wilco in The Spinal Frontier is the most ambitious—and arguably strangest—entry in the series. Released in 1995, it blends traditional adventure ga...

Mission: Impossible brings the famous spy franchise to the computer in an action-oriented adventure filled with dangerous missions, enemy agents, and situations where subtlety is g...

Warheads is a turn-based artillery game in the grand tradition of blowing your friends to pieces with ridiculous weapons. You control a team of tiny, heavily armed soldiers and tak...

Think Dungeon Master, but in space, and your party is made of four remote-controlled robot prisoners. Welcome to Captive, where the only thing more confusing than the plot is the m...

Based loosely on Jules Verne’s famous tale, this game lets you live your steampunk submarine dreams with all the elegance of a DOS interface. You command the Nautilus, explor...

Grand Prix Circuit is a fascinating early attempt at turning real-world racing into something playable without requiring a steering wheel the size of your desk. In Grand Prix Circu...

If spreadsheets are your love language, Capitalism 2 is pure romance. This brutally detailed simulation lets you create your own corporate empire from scratch—manufacturing, ...

Simple concepts often age remarkably well, and Mah Jongg Solitaire proves the point beautifully. The objective is straightforward: remove matching tiles while ensuring each selecti...

BattleTech: The Crescent Hawks' Revenge is a turn-based strategy game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Infocom in 1990. It is the sequel to "Crescent Hawk's I...

Nicky Boom is a 1992 platform game starring a young hero who finds himself in the traditional video game situation of having to save the day because apparently nobody else was avai...

SimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony is a wonderfully eccentric 1991 simulation that lets players experience life from the perspective of an ant. Rather than building cities or managi...

Paranormal agents, conspiracy theories, and point-and-click puzzles that would make even a ghost sigh in frustration. Bureau 13 is like The X-Files if Mulder and Scully spent more ...

Indiana Jones: Revenge of the Ancients from 1987 is one of those curious side stories that feels like it emerged from a parallel cinematic universe. Presented as a text-heavy adven...

Empire Earth asks a bold question: what if we took all of human history and turned it into one very long real-time strategy match? From cavemen to mech-wielding future armies, this...

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...

Gauntlet 2 is proof that sequels sometimes mean “more of the same, but louder.” The 1989 upgrade takes the chaotic dungeons of the original and adds new enemies, nastie...

Crazy Cars 2 upgrades the formula with a plot about crooked cops and stolen Ferraris. You’ll speed across vast American highways, dodging patrol cars that spawn with supernat...

Rings of Medusa is a 1990 DOS role-playing adventure that combines exploration, trading, combat, and strategy in a large fantasy world. Players travel across a map, gather resource...

The title Alex Higgins World Snooker might imply world-class snooker. What it delivers is 1986 DOS ball physics that sometimes feel like they were modeled in an alternate dimension...

Donald’s Alphabet Chase is the video game equivalent of hiding fridge magnets and watching a duck hunt them down. In this 1988 edutainment title, the mischievous alphabet let...