abandonware games sorted by popularity

The Fool's Errand is a puzzle-adventure computer game created by Cliff Johnson and released in 1987 for Macintosh and later for MS-DOS. The game follows the journey of a namel...

One-Nil Soccer Manager is a text-based soccer management simulation game that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was developed for various home computer systems, inc...

In Tau Ceti, you’re the lone pilot of a heavily armed hoverbike trying to reboot a dying colony under an alien sun. It’s slow, moody, and brilliantly atmospheric. The v...

Running a television station sounds glamorous until every program threatens to destroy your ratings. Mad TV cleverly blends business simulation, humor, and sabotage into an addicti...

Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur is a text adventure with occasional graphics, in which you, the not-yet-king, bumble your way through Camelot trying to prove you’re not just ...

Billy’s babysitter has been abducted by aliens, and he’s not having it. Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter! is the series at its most Saturday-morning-cartoon ...

Horror Zombies from the Crypt sounds like it should be terrifying, but in practice it leans more toward quirky than genuinely scary. Released in 1990, it mixes action and adventure...

Super Cauldron is a platforming game developed by Titus Interactive and released in 1993 for platforms like MS-DOS, Amiga, and Amstrad CPC. In the game, you play as a witch on...

System Shock drops you into a space station run by an AI that has clearly read too many villain manuals and decided to try them all at once. SHODAN, the game’s iconic antagon...

In Cosmic Soldier: Psychic War, you’re not just fighting enemies—you’re reading their minds while doing it. This RPG mixes sci-fi exploration with telepathic abil...

Screamer Rally (1997) took everything that made Screamer great and added dirt. Literally. The tracks are muddy, the physics bumpier, and the action even more intense. This time, it...

F-14 Tomcat is the kind of flight simulator that makes you feel like you should be wearing aviator sunglasses and chewing gum while sitting at your desk. Released at the height of ...

Before Doomguy started ripping and tearing, there was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. A stealth game where sneaking is mandatory, disguises are fashionable, and stabbing Nazis is encour...

Templars, assassins, and a clueless American tourist named George. Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is a 2D point-and-click masterpiece with more intrigue than a Vatican ba...

The title Dinosaur Balls might raise eyebrows today, but in 1992 it was just a quirky DOS puzzle game. Think of it as prehistoric Bubble Bobble: you fire colored spheres to match a...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Star Trek: First Contact (not to be confused with the later movie) is more puzzle-solving than phaser-firing. You take control of the Enterprise crew as t...

Artura is a hack-and-slash side-scroller that looks like someone tried to draw Gauntlet from memory after a power outage. You’re some kind of Celtic warrior on a mystical mis...

Powermonger takes the god-game formula of Populous and gives it teeth. Instead of playing benevolent deity, you’re more like a slightly cranky warlord, sending little soldier...

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...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is a geopolitical strategy game developed by Chris Crawford and released in 1985. It is considered a classic in the genre of political and strate...