The most popular top down games

Top down games were very popular in the 80s and the 90s, when graphic cards were not capable of supporting 3D, and even when 3D started to become popular, 2D games continued to be easier to develop, at least in the infancy of 3D gaming. 2D game offered the player a viewpoint that helped keeping things easily under control (think about top down party-based RPGs or hex-based strategy games).

Most popular top down games

Civilization

strategyDOS, Windows 3.x

Civilization 2

strategyWindows XP/98/95

Dune 2000

strategyWindows XP/98/95

Top down games

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WinRisk

Windows 3.x19924.1/5
Football Glory

DOS1995freeware3.8/5 Croteam
Motor City

DOS19944/5 Max Design
Dungeon of Shalan

DOS19883.5/5
Crazy Nick's Parlor Games with Laura Bow

DOS19923.4/5 Sierra On-Line
Battlestar

Windows 3.x1996freeware3.6/5
Astro Dodge

DOS19823.6/5 Digital Marketing Corporation
Robot Rascals

DOS19873.8/5 Ozark Softscape
Keys to Maramon

DOS19903.9/5 Mindcraft Software
Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle

DOS1991protected4/5 id software
Cave Wars

DOS19964.3/5
Shamus

DOS19843.7/5 Synapse Software
XQuest

DOS1994remake3.5/5
North and South

DOS19904.2/5 Infogrames
Conflict in Vietnam

DOS19864.1/5 MicroProse Software
Reaping The Dungeon

DOS19934/5 Frontline Software
Blitzkrieg: Battle at the Ardennes

DOS19903.5/5 Command Simulations
Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol

Windows 3.x1995protected4/5

Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol is fantasy RPG game released in 1995 for Windows 3.x, but it runs flawlessy even Windows XP (see this faq if you want to play Mordor in a virtual machine). Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol is a mix of first-person and top-down perspective dungeon crawler; the game shows the dungeon in by both perspectives at onc...
Blasteroids

DOS19893.8/5 Atari
Battle Isle

DOS1991protected3.7/5 Blue Byte Software
Merchant Colony

DOS19914.2/5 Impressions Games
Megatraveller 1: the Zhodani conspiracy

DOS19903.9/5 Paragon Software
Centurion: Defender of Rome

DOS19904.1/5 Bits of magic

Centurion: Defender of Rome is a turn-based strategy game set in ancient Rome times. As a centurion of the Roman Empire, you will fight against the enemies of Rome in real time battles in every corner of Italy and Europe, you'll be a gladiator, race chariots, fight naval battles and more.
SimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony

DOS19914.1/5 Maxis
Champion of the Raj

DOS19914.1/5 Personal Software Services
Clash of Steel

DOS1993protected4/5 SSI Strategic Simulations Inc.
M.U.D.S. - Mean Ugly Dirty Sport

DOS19904/5 Golden Goblins
Ivan 'Iron Man' Stewart's Super Off Road

DOS19904.2/5 Leland

Ivan 'Iron Man' Stewart's Super Off Road is an abandoned diagonal-down off-road racing game developed by Leland and released by Virgin Interactive in 1990 for DOS, but also published for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, ZX Spectrum and a lot of 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. Super Off Road is a classic fixed-screen track-racing similar to S...
Star General

Windows XP/98/95DOS1996protected4/5 Catware, Inc.
Monopoly Deluxe

DOSWindows 3.x19924/5 Parker Brothers

Monopoly Deluxe is an abandoned turn-based top-down Monopoly adaptation of the classic board game, developed by Parker Brothers and released by Virgin Interactive in 1992. Monopoly Deluxe was published for DOS, Windows 3.1, and Macintosh.