Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac
Author: GN Team - Published: 7 March 2026, 1:08 am
Age of Mythology is a real-time strategy game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft, released in November 2002 for Windows. It is the third major game in the Age of Empires universe, though it takes the series in a very different direction — abandoning historical accuracy in favour of ancient mythology.
The game was again led by Ian Fischer as lead designer, with Bruce Shelley contributing to the design, and Stephen Rippy returning as music composer. Rather than progressing through historical ages, players choose a civilization rooted in one of three ancient mythologies: Greek, Egyptian, or Norse. Each plays very differently from the others, a departure from the earlier Age of Empires games where civilizations shared most of their mechanics. As you advance through the ages, you must choose a new god to worship at each step, unlocking unique god powers, mythological creatures, and civilization bonuses depending on your choices. This system gives the game a high degree of customisation and replay value.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 25 February 2026, 2:38 am
Total Annihilation is a real-time strategy game developed by Cavedog Entertainment and published by Humongous Entertainment, released on September 27, 1997, for Windows. It was designed by Chris Taylor, and was Cavedog's first and only game series.
Cavedog Entertainment was founded in 1995 by Ron Gilbert and Shelley Day as a sister label to Humongous Entertainment, created specifically to develop more mature titles. Ron Gilbert is best known as the creator of Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island — so it's a surprising but fascinating piece of gaming history that the same person who gave us Guybrush Threepwood also co-founded the studio behind one of the most ambitious RTS games ever made. After the release of Total Annihilation's first expansion, Chris Taylor left Cavedog to set up his own company, Gas Powered Games, where he would later revisit the concept with Supreme Commander in 2007.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 25 February 2026, 2:38 am
Hexen: Beyond Heretic is a fantasy first-person shooter developed by Raven Software. It was released in 1995 as a sequel to Heretic, which had been published one year before. It is the second chapter of the Serpent Riders series.
Hexen was published by id Software, the creators of Doom, and, like Heretic, it uses an enhanced version of the Doom engine id Software created. The modified version of the Doom engine supports more advanced features, such as 3D environments, multiple character classes, and puzzles.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 23 February 2026, 8:21 pm
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is a real-time strategy game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft in 1999 for Windows and Macintosh. It is the sequel to Age of Empires, one of the most successful strategy games of the 1990s, with an expansion, Rise of Rome, released between the two.
The game was led by Ian Fischer as lead designer, with Bruce Shelley — co-founder of Ensemble Studios and co-designer of Sid Meier's Civilization — contributing to the design and historical research. Stephen Rippy returned as music composer, again researching authentic instruments and musical styles for each civilization in the game.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 22 February 2026, 1:21 am
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a real-time strategy game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment — then still known as Silicon & Synapse — released for MS-DOS in 1994. The Macintosh version followed in 1995.
The game is set in the fantasy world of Azeroth, where the human kingdoms face an invasion from a mysterious race of Orcs emerging from a dark portal. You can play as either side, with 12 scenarios per faction, each telling the story from a different perspective. The setting was relatively simple by later Warcraft standards, but it established the lore and the rivalry between Humans and Orcs that would define the franchise for decades.
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Author: GN Team - Published: 21 February 2026, 2:43 am
Command & Conquer is a real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios and published by Virgin Interactive in 1995 for MS-DOS. It was later released for Windows 95 and also came to several consoles.
The game was designed by Brett W. Sperry, Joseph Bostic, and Eydie Laramore. Bostic had also co-designed Dune II with Aaron E. Powell, which makes the lineage between the two games even more direct — this was the same creative mind refining and expanding on the formula he had helped invent. In fact, Command & Conquer was built directly on the foundation laid by Dune II, which Westwood themselves had created just two years earlier and which defined the real-time strategy genre. But where Dune II: The Battle For Arrakis was tied to a licensed universe, C&C introduced an original science-fiction setting: a global conflict between the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the terrorist organization Brotherhood of Nod, fighting over a mysterious alien resource called Tiberium.
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