The best top down games

Heirs to the Throne is one of those strategy titles that feels like it was designed by someone who truly enjoys watching players sweat over decisions. Set in a vaguely medieval pol...

18th Airborne is what happens when a military recruitment pamphlet and a tactical shooter have a baby. You’re thrown into the boots of a paratrooper with a mission, a gun, an...

If you’ve ever dreamed of commanding a WWII convoy while cold, stressed, and staring at a pixelated radar screen, Action in the North Atlantic (1989, DOS) has you covered. It...

Astro Fire (1994) is the illegitimate love child of Asteroids and a particularly angry fireworks show. You pilot a tiny ship with a death wish through an endless barrage of asteroi...

Crusade in Europe is a detailed World War II strategy game that lets you take command of the Allied or Axis forces during some of the war’s most famous campaigns. It’s ...

Gold of the Americas: The Conquest of the New World is a strategy game that invites you to rewrite history, usually by making the same mistakes but with more confidence. You manage...

Star Trek: Birth of the Federation is a turn-based strategy video game set in the Star Trek universe. The game was developed by MicroProse Software and published by Infogrames for ...

The Lost Patrol (1991, DOS) drops you into the brutal jungles of Vietnam, where survival depends on strategy, luck, and maybe divine intervention. You lead a squad of exhausted sol...

Xenon, released in 1988, was a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by The Bitmap Brothers. Xenon was initially released for the Commodore 64, and later, it was p...

By 1996, Legend of the Silver Talisman delivered a more traditional RPG adventure, though with a decidedly old-school feel. It’s a game that doesn’t bother holding your...

If you’ve ever wanted to feel intellectually inferior to a few hundred lines of 1981 code, Chess is your game. This digital board doesn’t bother with graphics flair or ...

Ready to get your heart racing with the world’s slowest competitive sport? Bicycle Bridge brings the thrill of bidding, trick-taking, and utter confusion straight to your DOS...

The Aethra Chronicles is a fantasy RPG that leans heavily into its world-building, offering players a rich setting filled with lore, quests, and plenty of opportunities to get lost...

Forget Freddy’s razor glove for a second - A Nightmare on Elm Street (1989) for DOS is terrifying in its own way. Mostly because of the controls. You play as a teen trying to...

What do you get when you mix Mad Max, Car Wars, and a fondness for vehicular homicide? You get Autoduel (1985, DOS), a top-down driving RPG where your car is your castle and your g...

In Ambush at Sorinor, tactics meet fantasy in a land where ambushing people is apparently the national sport. You’re a mercenary commander picking the right team to win missi...

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...

From the people who brought you Dungeons & Dragons, here's Blood & Magic (1996), the RTS that nobody remembers but definitely deserves a second glance. You summon golems fr...

Omega (1989, DOS) is what happens when someone hands you a robot, a wrench, and a thick manual, then says, “Good luck out there.” Instead of piloting a mech, you actual...

In Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse (1994), you’re not some grizzled barbarian or pointy-hatted wizard - no, you’re a noble corsair with charm, a sword, and a knack for gett...