Playing video games is often criticized as a “brainless” activity, but some games can actually offer a variety of learning opportunities for players of all ages. Beyond simple entertainment, educational video games help students develop key skills like problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration while promoting interest in subjects such as math, science, and history.
It’s no surprise that parents and educators are increasingly recognizing the value of gaming, using it to engage students in ways that traditional methods may not. By choosing the right educational games, students can explore new concepts while having fun and sharpening their cognitive abilities. We compiled a list of the ten best educational games with impressive educational value:
1. Minecraft
Minecraft is an open-world sandbox game that allows players to create structures and entire ecosystems using textured cubes. With both survival and creative modes, it emphasizes resource gathering, crafting, and exploring. Its intuitive design and the freedom to build nearly anything make Minecraft a versatile, imaginative space where students can design environments, build cities, solve puzzles, and even program in-game objects and set up complex systems of irrigation and electricity.
Minecraft is a powerful tool that supports collaboration, assessment, STEM learning, and more. Educators can use Minecraft to simulate ecosystems, historical settings, or collaborative projects. Minecraft Education Edition even includes in-game coding tools that “support your learners at every stage of their journey with fun, immersive lessons”. Minecraft transforms the classroom into a space where math, science, and problem-solving come alive through these features. With courses like the USAEL’s Through The Ages With Minecraft, students are diving into history and learning through video games with hands-on experiences.
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+
Common Sense Media: 4/5
2. Kerbal Space Program
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Kerbal Space Program (KSP) is a space flight simulation game where players design, build, and launch spacecraft to explore a fictional solar system. With its realistic physics engine, KSP introduces players to STEM concepts, budget management, and all essentials to real-life physics, rocketry, and space exploration.
Learning through video games like the Kerbal Space Program helps introduce complex scientific principles in an engaging, digestible, hands-on way. This educational game for middle schoolers and high schoolers allows students to experiment with rocket designs and observe cause-and-effect relationships by altering things like the shape and size of the rocket or its components. These cross-disciplinary ties to math, physics, and engineering make KSP a great educational game for learning or reinforcing STEM concepts. Teachers can use KSP to complement physics lessons on forces and angular momentum by assigning students to build rockets, achieve orbit, and analyze the stats of their designs, reinforcing scientific concepts through interactive play.
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Common Sense Media: 4/5
3. Universe Sandbox
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Universe Sandbox is a science-based physics and space simulator video game that lets players create and observe our universe, including its galaxies, star systems, planets, moons, and comets. By adjusting gravitational forces, temperatures, and mass, users can witness phenomena like supernovas, black holes, and orbital shifts. The game’s realistic simulations provide a unique view of how the universe operates on a grand scale.
Universe Sandbox is one of the best educational games for teaching astronomy and physics through interactive simulations, tying directly into STEM education by promoting scientific exploration and critical thinking. Students can experiment with planetary orbits, gravity, and interstellar collisions in real time, making abstract physics concepts more accessible and engaging. The game encourages exploration and experimentation, letting players test out big experiments, like making two galaxies collide or throwing asteroids at the Earth. As an educational game for high schoolers and middle schoolers, Universe Sandbox is ideal for physics or astronomy classes, serving as a virtual lab for students to design and test scientific theories.
IARC Rating: Everyone 7+
Common Sense Media: 4/5
4. Civilization VI
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Civilization VI is the latest installment in a much beloved real-time strategy (RTS) game series where players take on the roles of historical leaders, building empires from scratch, and guiding them through different eras of human civilization. Players have make strategic diplomatic decisions, evolve technology and master resource management to advance their civilization. With its turn-based structure, Civilization VI emphasizes the importance of planning, critical thinking, and adapting to changing conditions.
In the classroom, Civilization VI is an excellent educational video game to introduce students to world history, economics, and political science. Teachers can assign students to explore how different cultures developed or discuss the consequences of various economic and policies within the game. Through a simluation of government and resource allocation, students learn critical thinking and decision-making skills, making Civilization VI an incredible video game for learning real-world concepts.
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+
Common Sense Media: 5/5
5. Pokémon
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Pokémon games focus on capturing and training creatures with unique abilities. Players build a balanced team, strategize in battles, and explore diverse environments. With its focus on stats, strengths, and weaknesses, Pokemon combines adventure with strategic decision-making.
Pokémon is a fantastic video game for learning foundational math concepts. In Mastery Coding’s GameMath course, for example, Pokémon is used as a vehicle for standards-based math instruction. Players can calculate probabilities of catching different Pokémon, reinforcing math concepts like fractions and percentages. Additionally, the game encourages critical thinking and strategic planning as players choose moves and resources based on their Pokémon’s strengths, making it a highly engaging educational tool.
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Common Sense Media: 3/5
6. Factorio
Factorio is another “simulation” game where players design, build, and optimize industrial factories. Starting with limited resources, players have to automate production lines, manage logistics, and refine systems for optimal efficiency. The game requires strategic thinking and problem-solving as players confront challenges like resource scarcity and environmental management.
Factorio is a standout among video games that teach automation, systemic thinking, and programming concepts. Students can take part in building real-world industrial processes as they learn about logistics, production chains, and circuit networks through hands-on gameplay. The game encourages resource optimization and sustainable production while demonstrating how automation impacts efficiency. Its logic-based puzzles also enhance computational thinking, making it one of the best educational games for introducing coding and engineering principles in a fun, interactive way.
ESRB Rating: Teen
Common Sense Media: NA
7. Stardew Valley
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Stardew Valley is a relaxing, feel-good game where players operate their own farm, caring for crops, raising animals, and managing their resources and finances. In addition to farming, players can engage in community-building activities, and explore caves, forage, and fish. The game offers a relaxing but rich environment that promotes resource management and social interaction.
Stardew Valley is an engaging educational video game that has ties to multiple subjects, including math, science, and social studies. By managing resources like money and energy, students develop budgeting and time-management skills, while calculating profits from sales reinforces math concepts. Its focus on community building, history, and cultural events fosters an understanding of social dynamics and heritage. Stardew Valley offers a relaxing and well-rounded educational experience that’s both interactive and practical.
ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+
Common Sense Media: 4/5
8. No Man’s Sky
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No Man's Sky is an action-adventure survival game played from a first or third-person perspective that allows players to engage in four principal activities: exploration, survival, combat, and trading. As players explore, they catalog species, extract resources, and manage survival conditions, fostering curiosity about space and environmental science.
No Man’s Sky provides an immersive experience in STEM, and data shows that the game motivates players to learn more about physics and math, aiming to motivate students to engineer creative solutions through experimentation. Teachers can use it to discuss ecosystem diversity and sustainability, as well as astronomy, chemistry, and biology. By exploring different planets, flora, and fauna students gain a better understanding of how environments vary and the delicate balance needed for ecosystems and species to thrive.
ESRB Rating: Teen
Common Sense Media: 4/5
9. Rocket League
Rocket League combines soccer and racing in a fast-paced game where players score goals using rocket-powered cars. The game emphasizes teamwork, spatial awareness, and quick decision-making as players learn to control vehicles in a three-dimensional arena.
Rocket League offers a dynamic example of learning through video games, making math concepts like ratios and proportions tangible and engaging. By analyzing gameplay, students can explore ratios, such as the relationship between car speed and time to reach the ball or the angle of approach and see how these concepts apply to real-world decision-making. Rocket League supports problem-solving and strategic reasoning as students analyze in-game scenarios using algebraic thinking. Teachers can use the game to introduce principles of motion, force, and momentum, while also fostering teamwork and coordination.
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Common Sense Media: 4/5
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10. Cities: Skylines
Cities: Skylines is a classic city-building simulation game where players design, build, and manage a virtual city, balancing the needs of its population while maintaining economic growth, infrastructure, and environmental sustainability. Players can create roads, public transit, and zone for residential, commercial, and industrial areas, while addressing challenges like traffic, crime, and pollution as they develop and grow their cities.
SimCity is one of the best video games that teach urban planning, economics, and resource management. Educators can challenge their students to build cities that meet specific criteria while teaching what it looks like to balance budgets, taxation, and spending. Additionally, you can challenge your students to build cities that generate a certain amount of revenue from trade, have well-developed public transit systems, and follow sustainability guidelines. SimCity encourages critical thinking, as students navigate real-world challenges while allowing them to learn about the impacts of their decisions.
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Common Sense Media: 3/5
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Educational video games offer a unique and engaging way for students to learn important concepts across various subjects, from math and science to history and economics. These games transform the learning experience by incorporating hands-on exploration, problem-solving, and critical thinking into gameplay. By leveraging the interactive nature of video games, educators can foster creativity, teamwork, and cognitive skills in students of all ages. Incorporating these games into the classroom is an exciting way to make learning both fun and effective.
Interested in learning more about how you can bring games into your classroom? Contact us today to discover how we can help you integrate video games into your lessons and create a more engaging learning experience for your students.
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