Games set in a urban environment sorted by release date
There are a lot of games that take place in urban environments. Cities from any epoch (both ancient and modern) were often used as the setting, or even for the purpose, for any kind of game: simulation, strategy, action, etc. Think about a medieval town, an ancient city, a modern metropolis, a futuristic megalopolis; you can bet that someone used one of these as the setting of a successful game.
Most popular urban setting games
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Softporn Adventure
DOS1981freewareNSFW Sierra On-Line
Frogger
DOS1983 Konami
Murder by the Dozen
DOS1983 BrainBank
Alley Cat
DOS1984 Synapse Software
You are a cat. Not a cool panther or a mystical tiger. Just a good old alley cat trying to make it through a day full of brooms, angry dogs, and questionable fish. Alley Cat is a fever dream of a platformer, where you leap between windows, break into people’s homes, and participate in strange mini-games like mouse catching and goldfish steali...
Bouncing Babies
DOS1984
Ah yes, the golden age of video games: where catching babies yeeted from burning buildings was a fun pastime. In Bouncing Babies, you play as a heroic volunteer with a trampoline, catching pixel infants and launching them to safety. It’s like juggling, but if you drop anything, you feel absolutely awful. Equal parts wholesome and horrifying, ...
Felony!
DOS1984 BrainBank
Frogger Jr.
DOS1984
Borrowed Time
DOS1985 Interplay Productions
Borrowed Time is a graphic adventure video game developed and published by Interplay Productions. It was released in 1985 for various platforms, including the Apple Macintosh, Apple II, DOS, and Atari ST. The game is notable for its early use of digitized photos and a noir-style detective narrative. The game's story is set in the 1930s and fol...
221B Baker Street
DOS1986 Datasoft
You are Sherlock Holmes, and someone has committed a crime, possibly because they couldn’t handle the game’s UI. 221B Baker Street is a detective board game where your mind is your only weapon. And also a notepad, because keeping track of clues is half the game. You wander through foggy London, asking yourself how such elegant mystery-s...
Sherlock Holmes: The Vatican Cameos
DOS1986 Magicom Multimedia
Tass Times in Tonetown
DOS1986 Interplay Productions
Bureaucracy
DOSMac OS1987 Infocom
Douglas Adams, the twisted genius behind Hitchhiker’s Guide, brings you the most terrifying adventure of all: paperwork. Bureaucracy turns mundane modern life into a text-based hellscape of lost forms, passive-aggressive clerks, and exploding bank accounts. The parser might frustrate you, but that’s kind of the point. You’ll laugh...
Deja Vu: A Nightmare Comes True
DOS1987 ICOM Simulations
King of Chicago
DOSMac OS1987 Cinemaware
Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards
DOS1987NSFW Sierra On-Line
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is the debut title in the Leisure Suit Larry series, created by Al Lowe and originally published by Sierra On-Line in 1987. The game follows Larry Laffer, a leisure-suit-wearing man in his forties who, despite being a virgin, is determined to find true love over the course of a wild night in the ...
Metropolis
DOS1987 Arcadia Systems
Police Quest 1: In Pursuit of the Death Angel
DOS1987 Sierra On-Line
Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel is an adventure game released in 1987 by Sierra On-Line, designed by former police officer Jim Walls. It's the first installment in the Police Quest series and is known for its realistic portrayal of police procedures.In the game, you play as Sonny Bonds, a police officer in the fictional city of Lytton, ...
Roadwar 2000
DOS1987protected SSI Strategic Simulations Inc.
Roadwar Europa
DOS1987protected SSI Strategic Simulations Inc.
Street sports baseball
DOS1987 Epyx
Street sports basketball
DOS1987 Epyx
The Bard's Tale
DOS1987 Interplay Productions
The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown was developed by Interplay Productions and published by Electronic Arts for DOS and other systems. The game takes place in the fictional city of Skara Brae, which is overrun by monsters and under the control of the evil wizard Mangar the Dark. Your goal as the player is to assemble a party of adventurers t...
The Three Stooges
DOS1987freeware Cinemaware
2400 A.D.
DOS1988 Origin Systems
Ah, 2400 A.D. A game where you can rebel against a robot police state… by slowly walking around in beige. Released in 1988, it’s what happens when you mix Orwellian dystopia with MS Paint aesthetics. You’ll sneak, hack, and run errands for the revolution, all while wearing what looks like a futuristic jumpsuit made of cardboard. ...
Awesome Earl in SkateRock
DOS1988
Remember when being radical meant wearing neon shorts and dodging killer squirrels on a skateboard? No? Well, Awesome Earl in SkateRock is here to educate you. Released in 1988, this sidescrolling oddity lets you control a tubular dude with more 'tude than pixels, skating his way through a world of questionable design and rockin’ background t...
Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja
DOS1988protected Data East
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? If that line doesn’t make you want to punch a ninja through a hotdog stand, nothing will. Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja is peak 80s: mullets, muscles, and more side-scrolling beatdowns than a Chuck Norris fan convention. It's cheesy, it's repetitive, and yes — it's absolutely glorious.
Batman: the Caped Crusader
DOS1988 Special FX
Half comic book, half arcade game, Batman: The Caped Crusader (1988) offers a delightfully weird aesthetic with its paneled visual style and pulp serial vibe. You’ll punch, puzzle-solve, and generally Batman your way through the Penguin and Joker's nonsense. The game plays like a noir graphic novel with an 8-bit accent. Bonus: Batman’s ...
Corruption
DOS1988 Magnetic Scrolls
Double Dragon
DOS1988 Technos Japan