I got a DM on LinkedIn from a friend asking for recommendations for educational games for older kids, since my friend was having trouble finding any worth spending time or money on. We are having a similar situation. Our nine-year-old no longer has any use for the learning games she used to play or her school offers, like Teach Your Monster to Read, Prodigy or ABC Mouse.
Minecraft has stepped into this space, creating more educational modules. The GGDA has even advised the Georgia DoE on, but teens now often find Minecraft to be a kids’ toy (https://education.minecraft.net/en-us/resources).
My main recommendation are entertainment titles that do a great job of Stealth Education. “Civilization” is the best example of this. I also recommended HDI’s own Machiavelli the Prince for politics, economics and Renaissance history (now on sale at https://www.gog.com/en/game/machiavelli_the_prince for less than $4). We want people to learn before they realize that is what they are doing 🙂
There used to be some excellent Flash games like Darfur is Dying, which taught about the Rwandan genocide, but the end of Flash means these games are hard to find and play, and who wants Flash on a computer they care about?
Steam does have the Education tag, but I find that a lot of games have that tag that should not. However, I have been told good things about https://store.steampowered.com/app/1270620/Project_Chemistry/ but since I have not played it, I do not feel I can specifically recommend it. Still, it might be worth taking the time to explore that tag on Steam. If you have explored that tag, or have your own recommendations, I would love to hear them.