Games like Petz: 6 cozy pet games you can play today

🐾 Petropolis Play

Best for: Petz kids who want a pet who's simply theirs again — free, no download, no signup

Full disclosure: this is our game, and it's why this list exists — so let's be honest about the line first: Petropolis Play is not a 90s desktop-pet sim. There's no breed genetics here, no breeding litters of puppies, no hexed breedz, and no critter wandering around your actual desktop — ours is a quieter, single-player cozy corner. What Petropolis Play keeps is Petz's deeper heart. You adopt: four species are free today — pup, kitten, bunny and a brand-new sunny turtle — each in their own colors, each waiting for the name you give them, just like the Adoption Center. You care: hunger, happiness and health tick down gently, and feeding, playing and resting bring them back up (pets can never die or run away — they just wait patiently for you). You earn: PawCoins come from minigames like Berry Catch and a daily login bonus, and they can never be bought — there's no premium currency at all. And you decorate: drag-and-drop furniture into a room that's entirely yours, across five themes. Best of all for anyone whose Petz lived on a family PC that's long gone: the game is plain HTML, runs in any browser tab, needs no account, no disc and no compatibility mode — and your progress saves on your own device, where no discontinued series can take it. It's free forever, it's genuinely mobile-friendly, and the only purchase is an optional $4.99 one-time Full Version — never a subscription. Don't take our word for it: it's embedded above.

🐾 Play free right now

🐕 Petz (Dogz & Catz)

Best for: the original desktop pet — discontinued; the fan community keeps the bowls filled

The honest starting point: the Petz series is discontinued, and we'd rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise. PF.Magic's Dogz: Your Computer Pet (1995) and Catz: Your Computer Pet (1996) were the original virtual pets for PC — adopted at the Adoption Center, named, fed treatz, played with using toyz, photographed with the camera, and (from Petz II, 1997) bred for puppies and kittens who inherited their parents' looks and personalities. After PF.Magic's sale to The Learning Company and then Mattel, Ubisoft took the leash: Petz 5 (2002) was the last classic PC entry, and the later console and handheld line ended with Petz Beach and Petz Countryside on Nintendo 3DS in October 2014. Nothing official has shipped since. What keeps it alive is the fans: a devoted community still runs Petz 4 on modern Windows with compatibility settings, trades adoptions, and creates hexed custom breedz. The honest catches: nothing is sold new (secondhand CD-ROMs from resale listings only), a 1999 game needs patches and workarounds on Windows 11, and your pets live and die with one old hard drive.

🎾 Nintendogs

Best for: the closest mainstream successor — on old Nintendo hardware

If Dogz walked so Nintendogs could run: Nintendo's 2005 DS hit put a puppy in your pocket — you called their name into the microphone, petted them with the stylus, threw the frisbee, went for walks and entered contests, with Bark Mode to meet other pups. It's still charming today, and since everything runs from the cartridge, no server can ever take your dog away. The honest catches: you need a working Nintendo DS or 3DS and a secondhand cartridge, there's been no new entry since 2011's Nintendogs + Cats, and it's never come to Switch, browser or phone.

⭐ Neopets

Best for: a whole pet world that's still online, free in a browser

From the same 90s pet-kid generation as Petz: Neopets launched in 1999, outlived Flash, and is still free in a real browser tab — no download, no disc: create a Neopet, name it, feed it, play games for Neopoints, do dailies and explore a whole planet. It's the one classic pet world of that era that never left the browser. The honest catches: it's a quarter-century of accumulated interface, everything starts with an account sign-up, and its economy and battling sides are more spreadsheet than storybook.

🧸 Webkinz Classic

Best for: the adopt-care-decorate ritual — still online

If what you miss most is having a pet who's yours and a space to furnish for them, Ganz's Webkinz is still standing: your plush's adoption code brings your pet to life online, where you feed them, play with them and decorate their room — the same gentle ritual as the Adoption Center and the toy shelf. Webkinz Classic keeps that original 2000s loop alive today. The honest catches: the traditional adoption model is tied to buying a physical plush toy with a code, it runs through apps rather than a plain browser tab, and an optional Deluxe Membership gates extras.

🥚 Tamagotchi

Best for: the pocket-sized original that's still sold new

Bandai's egg-shaped keychain (1996 — a year after Dogz) is the other grandparent of every pet game on this list, and unlike Petz it never went away: brand-new devices still ship today, including 2025's Tamagotchi Paradise — feeding, playing and cleaning up in a care loop small enough to live on your bag. The honest catches: the screen is the size of a postage stamp, the loop is deliberately simple (no rooms to decorate), and a new device costs real money up front rather than being free.