abandonware games sorted by popularity

Released in 1994 (long after it originally debuted on other platforms), Ant Attack! is what you get when you mix isometric graphics, giant ants, and questionable urban planning. Yo...

Cutthroats: Terror on the High Seas puts you aboard ships where peaceful retirement is apparently not part of the career plan. The game mixes naval action, exploration, and the dan...

The Humans is a puzzle game built around a charmingly simple idea: you control a group of tiny prehistoric people and must help them reach safety by making use of their different a...

Champions of Krynn is a RPG released in 1990 by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and is the first game in the Dragonlance Gold Box series. It is based on the Advanced Dungeons &am...

Deus Ex is a critically acclaimed action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released in 2000 and was designed by Warren Spect...

The Gene Machine is a quirky point-and-click adventure with a colorful comic-book style, a bizarre cast, and a story that happily wanders into territory where ordinary logic should...

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...

Few adventure games establish their unsettling atmosphere as quickly as Manhunter: New York. Set in a future where alien overseers dominate Earth, the story places you in the uncom...

Cossacks: Back to War expands the large-scale real-time strategy formula of the Cossacks series with additional factions, campaigns, and battles inspired by European warfare. Huge ...

With a title like Pray for Death, you know you’re not signing up for a cheerful platformer. This is a fighting game with a gothic, heavy-metal aesthetic that screams 1996. It...

Ultima 8 drops the Avatar into a grim, volcanic world where “fun” is defined as plummeting to your death from badly timed jumps. Yes, the infamous platforming mechanics...

Released in 1997, Extreme Assault is a bold and ambitious hybrid that blends flight simulation with ground combat in a futuristic setting. You pilot advanced military hardware acro...

Blasteroids is a video game developed and released by Atari, Inc. in 1987. It's a sequel to the classic arcade game Asteroids, which was released in 1979. In Blasteroids, players c...

Whale's Voyage is a quirky science-fiction adventure that combines exploration, trading, combat, and a surprisingly large amount of freedom. Despite the title, you are not spending...

Plan 9 From Outer Space is a 1992 adventure game inspired by the famously strange science-fiction film of the same name. The game embraces the bizarre atmosphere of its source mate...

City of Lost Children is as beautiful as it is bewildering. Based on the surreal 1995 film, this adventure game drops you into a dark, oily dystopia filled with creepy orphans, biz...

Imagine Doom and Ultima Underworld had a low-budget child who was homeschooled in a basement filled with Mountain Dew cans. That’s Amulets & Armor. A mix of first-person ...

Playhouse Strip Poker is a 1988 DOS card game that combines the traditional rules of poker with the novelty elements popular in adult entertainment software of the era. Players com...

Baseball Mogul (1997) was the original release that kicked off the whole franchise. Developed by Clay Dreslough and published by Infinite Monkey Systems, this was a pioneer in the ...

Kaiser places players in charge of building wealth through commerce, diplomacy, and careful management rather than endless battles. Set against a historical backdrop, it challenges...

The Dark Heart of Uukrul is a challenging fantasy role-playing game that throws the player into a sprawling dungeon full of monsters, traps, secrets, and enough dark corridors to m...

Alternate Reality: The City is a role-playing video game developed by Paradise Programming for various platforms including Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, and Commodore 64. It was released ...

As sequels go, Serpent Isle is less “more of the same” and more “everything is different, good luck.” Shipwrecked on a strange new land, you’ll deal w...

Film Studio Tycoon Alpha is a management simulation about the glamorous world of filmmaking, except that glamour quickly gives way to budgets, scheduling, production decisions, and...

In 1989, Deathtrack tried to answer a question nobody asked: “What if NASCAR had machine guns?” The result is a futuristic racer where speed and firepower go hand in ha...

If Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego had a caffeinated younger cousin, it would be Bush Buck: Global Treasure Hunter. You race around the globe chasing clues, dodging rivals, a...

Super Tetris takes the familiar falling-block puzzle formula and gives it a slightly expanded treatment, challenging players to arrange shapes efficiently before the playfield beco...

In 1986, Dragonfly emerged as one of those simple but strangely addictive action games. Picture a cross between a shooter and an abstract insect simulator. The graphics are blocky,...

Star Wars Chess turns the classic game of chess into a surprisingly noisy Star Wars spectacle. Released in 1993, it keeps the familiar rules but replaces the traditional pieces wit...

Alcatraz (1992) asks the question: what if Rambo got locked in prison and had to bust out while flexing dramatically the entire time? This top-down action game puts you in the very...