abandonware games sorted by popularity

The Dig is a thoughtful science-fiction adventure from LucasArts that sends a small group of explorers to an alien world after a mysterious object is discovered near Earth. What be...

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...

This 1996 point-and-click western is what you’d get if Lucky Luke and Monkey Island had an awkward but lovable baby. 3 Skulls of the Toltecs throws you into a spaghetti weste...

Might and Magic 3: Isles of Terra is where the series starts to feel confident, like a dungeon master who has finally figured out how cruel they can be before players revolt. The l...

Before NBA 2K made your thumbs cry, there was One-on-One Basketball. You get to control either Larry Bird or Julius Erving in a thrilling display of 80s pixelated hoop dreams. The ...

AutoCAD 2.5 represents an important stage in the development of computer-aided design software, arriving when personal computers were beginning to become genuinely useful for techn...

Escape from Hell asks the important question: what if escaping the underworld were less Dante and more sarcastic road trip? You descend into a demon-infested landscape armed with d...

The Great Escape is an adventure game inspired by the classic prison-break movie, placing the player inside a World War II prisoner-of-war camp where freedom depends on observation...

If you’ve ever wanted to feel intellectually inferior to a few hundred lines of 1981 code, Chess is your game. This digital board doesn’t bother with graphics flair or ...

There’s a certain audacity in naming a sequel Oh no! More Lemmings, as if the developers knew exactly what they were unleashing upon your already overworked brain. This 1991 ...

In this 1986 DOS game, you're piloting a spacecraft in the year 2123, defending the United Planets from the Andromedan Hegemony. It's like being the captain of a starship, but with...

Sherlock Holmes: Another Bow is a 1985 DOS adventure featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective in a mystery that requires observation, deduction, and a willingness to investi...

If you’ve ever dreamed of becoming a 19th-century merchant sailing the high seas with a suspiciously optimistic outlook on international trade, 1869 is your jam. It throws yo...

Night Mission Pinball is a 1982 pinball simulation that proves the basic appeal of pinball is remarkably difficult to ruin. The game recreates the essential ingredients of the real...

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 ...

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...

Imagine stepping into a sci-fi fever dream written during a caffeine crash, and you’ll get Bargon Attack (1992). This French point-and-click adventure is stylish, surreal, an...

Red Sky at Morning is a 1993 DOS strategy game that places players in a military setting where planning and decision-making are more important than quick reflexes. The game challen...

From the people who brought you Dungeons & Dragons, here's Blood & Magic (1996), the RTS that nobody remembers but definitely deserves a second glance. You summon golems fr...

Hugo’s House of Horrors is a classic example of early adventure gaming, complete with pixelated graphics and puzzles that require a mix of logic and guesswork. Released in 1990, ...

Rick Dangerous 2 continues the adventures of the fearless explorer with larger levels, new environments, and even more inventive ways to make the player regret moving too quickly. ...

The Guild of Thieves is a classic interactive fiction adventure in which exploration, puzzles, and carefully written descriptions do most of the heavy lifting. Set in a world of my...

Spirit of Adventure is a 1991 fantasy role-playing game that sends a party of adventurers into a world filled with monsters, magic, exploration, and the usual assortment of people ...

1990’s Back to the Future Part 2 for DOS is a game that tries very hard to be as confusing as time travel itself. You’re Marty McFly, zipping between timelines, avoidin...

King's Quest III: To Heir is Human takes an unexpected turn by casting players as Gwydion, a servant trapped under the watchful eye of an evil wizard. Escaping requires careful pla...

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...

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...

Building on its predecessor, Labyrinth of Worlds expands the formula by throwing you across multiple dimensions. Each world has its own flavor—icy wastelands, alien landscape...

It’s Pac-Man, but with sunglasses. CD-Man v2.0 (1992) is a slick, souped-up clone that trades in yellow cheese for 90s attitude. Maze-chomping, ghost-dodging, and the occasio...

Thief: The Dark Project helped redefine the stealth genre by making shadows, sound and patience more important than raw firepower. You play Garrett, a professional thief who would ...