The most popular top-down party-based RPG games

Exile II: Crystal Souls is the kind of RPG that quietly sneaks into your life and then refuses to leave your thoughts. Released in 1996, it looks humble, even a bit scruffy, but be...

By 1994, RPG fans were spoiled with titles like Might and Magic and Ultima. Then along came Disciples of Steel, a brutally complex, turn-based fantasy epic for DOS. It drops you in...

Phantasie 1 is a 1987 role-playing game that helped establish many of the traditions later associated with computer fantasy adventures. Players create a party of heroes, explore da...

Exile: Escape from the Pit, released in 1995, is where the whole strange, subterranean saga begins. You’re exiled—literally—thrown into an underground world and t...

Scavengers of the Mutant World (1988) takes you to a post-apocalyptic wasteland where radiation has turned most life forms into something between a potato and a death machine. Your...

Fancy saving a kingdom from impending doom in exactly 100 in-game days? Challenge of the Five Realms (1992) offers just that, blending RPG exploration with a looming deadline and s...

Azalta: Cult of the Raven is what happens when a lone developer says, “I can make an RPG better than Ultima!” and sort of does. Released in 1996, this DOS dungeon crawl...

Blades of Exile is a classic role-playing video game developed by Spiderweb Software. It's the third installment in the "Exile" series. The game was released in 1997 for Mac OS, an...

In this 1989 DOS game, you survive in a post-apocalyptic world where demons have taken over. Scavenge for resources, fight off demonic creatures, and try to rebuild civilization. I...

Meantime is one of those fascinating lost adventures that has become more interesting precisely because players never got the chance to experience the finished game. Designed by th...

Fountain of Dreams is a post-apocalyptic RPG that feels like a distant, slightly sunburned cousin of more famous wasteland adventures. Set in a radioactive Florida, it sends you sc...

By the time Exile III: Ruined World arrived in 1997, the series knew exactly what it wanted to be—and it delivered with confidence. This installment expands the scope dramati...

The Temple of Elemental Evil is a remarkably faithful computer adaptation of classic Dungeons & Dragons, based on the famous Greyhawk adventure. It offers turn-based combat, charac...

Dark Sun 2: Wake of the Ravager takes the harsh desert world of Athas and turns up the intensity. Building on its predecessor, it offers deeper role-playing, improved combat, and a...

If Dungeons of Kairn were a person, it’d be that quiet D&D player who never smiles and always plays lawful evil. Released in 1989, this obscure DOS crawler delivers all t...

Dragonflight (1991) was a German RPG that dared to think big—party-based adventuring, sprawling maps, and a proper fantasy plot. It played like a love letter to Ultima with i...

Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace combines Dungeons & Dragons role-playing with space exploration, producing one of the stranger but more memorable fantasy hybrids of the early 19...