abandonware games sorted by popularity

Normality is a first-person adventure video game developed by Gremlin Interactive and released in 1996. The game is set in a dystopian future where a totalitarian regime known as t...

The wonderfully direct title If It Moves, Shoot It! leaves little room for misunderstanding. Released in 1989, it is a side-scrolling shooter where diplomacy is not among the avail...

Emmanuelle: A Game of Eroticism is less about eroticism and more about awkward curiosity. Released in 1989, it’s a slow, text-heavy experience filled with suggestion, innuend...

Visual Basic 3 (VB3) is a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) released by Microsoft in 1993. It is part of the Visual Basic (VB) series, which is know...

Anachronox is a 2001 role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive with a futuristic, cyberpunk-inspired setting. The game was written and direc...

Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans is one of gaming’s most famous “what could have been” stories. Designed as a point-and-click adventure set in the Warcraft ...

Do you find spreadsheets thrilling? Does the idea of profit margins make your heart race? Then Business Simulator is your kind of party. It’s all about running a faceless com...

Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds is a science fiction real-time strategy game set in the Star Wars universe, focused both on the first and the second Star Wars trilogy. Star Wars:...

Before Gettysburg, there was Decision in the Desert (1985), which simulates WWII’s North African campaign. Expect hex maps, endless sand, and the occasional tank battle that ...

Toobin is an abandoned action game developed by Domark Software and released in 1989. Toobin runs on DOS but was also published for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Game...

Ah, Chessmaster 3000. The title alone sounds like it should have lasers and robot arms, but what you get is a thoughtful, elegant chess sim that finally brings charisma to the game...

Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light ver...

Hard Hat Mack is the kind of game that proves construction work can be more dangerous in pixels than in real life, provided real life had ladders that seem determined to betray you...

Welcome to Alter Ego: Male Version, where your life begins with a cry and a diaper and only goes downhill - or uphill, depending on your choices. This text-based simulation lets yo...

By 1992, Vol. 3 wrapped up the trilogy with even more complex scenarios. At this point, the series had become less of a game and more of an interactive textbook—though that&r...

1999’s BitStorm is what happens when someone decides to make a strategy game and forgets to put the brakes on the caffeine. It’s fast, it’s furious, and you&rsquo...

Before open-world RPGs let you be anyone, Dusk of the Gods made you a literal Viking demigod with a bad temper and worse manners. Released in 1991, it blends Norse mythology with t...

Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard is a curious mix of puzzle and strategy, wrapped in a fantasy setting that feels both familiar and slightly peculiar. The mechanics encourage careful pla...

Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja is a side-scrolling platformer video game developed and released by Data East in 1991. Known as "Joe & Mac" in North America and "Caveman Ninja" in...

In Armor Alley, you command a helicopter in a warzone that looks like a side-scrolling office meeting gone wrong. It’s strategy meets action: you must manage resources, deplo...

Seek and Destroy was a shoot'em up published by the well known Epic Megagames in 1996 that tried to change the usual shoot'em up gameplay for the better. Instead of wave after wave...

Seal Team (1993) drops you into the muddy waters of the Vietnam War as part of an elite Navy SEAL squad. It’s surprisingly realistic for its time—meticulously tactical,...