At seven, the best games are the ones where nobody outside the household can talk to your child. That rules out less than you might think. It rules in almost everything on a console played on the sofa, most creative apps, and a surprising number of online games once one setting is changed.
The list below is organized by type rather than by title, because titles change every year and the types do not. At the end is the check to run on any game that is not on the list.
Why "no chat" is the right filter at seven
A seven year old cannot reliably tell an adult from a child by how they type, and cannot judge when a friendly question is a fishing one. That is not a criticism of the child. It is what seven is.
Chat is also where most of the risk in children's games concentrates. The UNICEF working paper on child safety in online gaming documents that harms to children in games come through the social layer far more than through the content of the games themselves. Remove the social layer and you have removed most of the problem without touching the play.
There is a second reason. Games with open chat are usually built to keep a child in the room. Games without it are usually built to be finished.
The three kinds of chat, because "no chat" can mean three things
Before the list, a distinction that matters.
Open text or voice. Anyone in the game can type or speak to your child. This is the one to avoid at seven, and it is the one most people mean by chat.
Preset phrases and emotes. The child can send "Good game" or a wave, chosen from a fixed menu. No free text. This is common in console games with online play, and it is fine. Nobody can ask a question through a menu of six phrases.
Friends-only chat. Free text, but only with accounts on an approved list. Fine in principle, and only as good as the approval process. If the child can approve their own friend requests, it is open chat with an extra step.
When a store page or a review says a game has no chat, check which of the three it means.
Games that come without chat
Couch games on a console. Almost everything made by Nintendo for its own consoles ships without free text or voice chat, and most of it is designed for two to four people in one room. Kart racing, platformers, party games and sports collections in this category are the easiest yes on this list. Some have an online mode against strangers, which is a separate question from chat, and one you can simply not enable.
Creative sandbox apps. Apps where the child builds a town, dresses characters, runs a shop or makes music, with no other players at all. The well-known ones for this age are single-player by design. The thing to check here is not chat but purchases, since many sell furniture, characters or locations inside the app.
Public broadcaster games. PBS KIDS Games is the clearest example: free, no accounts, no chat, no advertising, aimed squarely at this age. The games are simple. For a seven year old, simple is not a flaw.
Puzzle and story games. Single-player puzzle games, point-and-click adventures and story games have no one else in them. They also tend to have real endings, which makes stopping easier.
Active games in the living room. Camera and motion games played on a TV or laptop, where the body is the controller, are usually local by design. Nex Playground, for instance, has no open chat and no third-party apps. Games in this category are also the ones a child can play with a sibling or a parent without either person needing to hold a controller.
Games that have chat but can be made not to
Some of the games a seven year old will ask for by name have chat, and can be played safely once it is turned off. This takes a parent five minutes and a willingness to say no to the online mode.
Minecraft. Multiplayer chat is free text and on by default in most modes. Played single-player, or on a private realm with cousins, it is one of the best building games ever made for this age. The account settings let a parent restrict chat and multiplayer; Minecraft's help site walks through them. The rule that works in most families: your world, our people, no public servers.
Roblox. Chat can be turned off and friend requests closed, but it takes several settings and the platform's defaults are wrong for this age. The Roblox guide covers each one. At seven, the honest recommendation is to wait, or to allow an explicit short list of experiences with chat off.
Any game with a "party" or "squad" feature. Party voice chat is often controlled at the console level rather than inside the game, so a game can be chat-free and the console can still let strangers into a voice party. Check both. The console side is covered in how to set up parental controls on the devices kids actually use.
The two-minute check before any new game
For a game not covered above:
- Find the rating. In North America the ESRB rating includes interactive elements. "Users Interact" means the game has some form of communication with other players. "In-Game Purchases" means what it says. Both appear on the store page and on the box.
- Open the settings before the child does. Look for chat, voice, friend requests and online play. Turn off whatever you would not want a stranger to have.
- Play the first ten minutes yourself, or with the child. Notice whether the game tries to sell something, and whether anyone else appears.
- Ask how the game ends. A round, a level, a chapter, or never.
A game that passes all four is a good game for a seven year old whatever its title. A game that fails the first one is not made safer by being popular.
What "no chat" does not solve
A game with no chat can still be a bad afternoon. It can be all purchases, or all repetition, or a thing the child cannot put down. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests judging screen use by what it displaces and how the child is afterwards, and that test still applies once strangers are out of the picture.
And a seven year old who plays with nobody at all is missing something too. The good version of multiplayer is a cousin, a classmate, a sibling on the next controller. That is what we are building at Motions: kids play with people their parents have approved on both sides, and nobody else can reach them. Families who want that shape can request access.
For the broader question of what games offer that feeds do not, see are online games better than social media for kids.