Excel’s best-documented hidden games belong to specific older releases: the Hall of Tortured Souls in Excel 95, a Flight Simulator in Excel 97, and Dev Hunter in Excel 2000. Their activation steps are historical, not a way to unlock games in current Microsoft 365. Access depends on having the right old Excel version and, for Dev Hunter, additional obsolete software.
Which Excel versions have documented hidden games?
| Excel release | Hidden game | What it is | Activation evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excel 95 | Hall of Tortured Souls | A Doom-style 3D maze that displays developer credits, according to PC Gamer. | Historical steps reported by secondary coverage; not a currently tested walkthrough. |
| Excel 97 | Flight Simulator | A flight-simulation Easter egg described in a legacy Pearson sample chapter. | Activation sequence published in a user-submitted guide; community comments report failures in later versions. |
| Excel 2000, before Service Release 1 | Dev Hunter | A car-driving game. The legacy chapter specifies Internet Explorer and DirectX as additional requirements. | Version and dependency limits are described in the Pearson sample chapter; the egg is absent from Service Release 1 and later. |
These are version-specific Easter eggs, not a single hidden-games menu. Claims about further Excel games, including ones attributed to Excel 2003, are not established by the sources available for this guide.
Excel 95: Hall of Tortured Souls
PC Gamer describes the Hall of Tortured Souls as a 3D maze with a Doom-like presentation and developer credits. Its account says the historical sequence starts at row 95: use Tab to select the second cell, then open Help and choose Tech Support. Treat this as a reported route for Excel 95, not as a verified procedure for modern Excel or other releases.
Excel 97: Flight Simulator
A community-submitted guide documents this sequence for the Excel 97 flight simulator. Because it is user-submitted and its comments report failures in Excel 2000, Excel XP, and Excel 2007, consider it applicable only to the relevant legacy Excel 97 setup—not later versions.
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- In Excel 97, press F5 to open Go To.
- Enter
X97:L97and press Enter. - Press Tab to move to the indicated cell.
- Hold Ctrl+Shift and click the Chart Wizard icon.
The guide identifies Excel 97 SR-1 or later as a requirement, but the reader reports attached to it describe inconsistent results in subsequent Excel releases. That conflict is a reason not to treat the sequence as a dependable cross-version trick.
Former Excel programmer Ed Fries said early Easter eggs followed a rule: “they were perfectly fine to include in the code, as long as there was no code that actually executed the easter egg!” His interview places his Excel work in 1986–1991 and says the Flight Simulator came later; it does not establish that he created the Excel 97 game. The interview also describes the egg as depending on an early DirectDraw version.
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Excel 2000: Dev Hunter
The Pearson sample chapter describes Dev Hunter as a car-driving game and gives strict historical requirements: Excel 2000 before Service Release 1, Internet Explorer, and DirectX. It says Service Release 1 and later versions omit the Easter egg.
- In the compatible Excel 2000 installation, publish the worksheet as an interactive web page.
- Open that page in Internet Explorer.
- Select row 2000 and column WC.
- Use the chapter’s keyboard combination and click the Office logo to invoke the game.
The source does not establish that this procedure works with present-day browsers, operating systems, or Office installations. Since the required Excel release and supporting software are obsolete, these directions are best understood as a record of how the egg was accessed at the time.
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Can you play these games in current Excel or Microsoft 365?
There is no supported way established here to activate these legacy games in current Microsoft 365. In a Microsoft Q&A response, the respondent says Office 97 and Office 2000 are out of support, that they could not test those releases, and that they could not reproduce the process in Microsoft 365. This is a community response, not a comprehensive Microsoft statement that every historical Easter egg was removed; it does, however, offer no basis for presenting current Excel as a way to play them.
An old Office CD is a possible historical route to the original software, not a guarantee of a working setup. The right release, required dependencies, and compatibility with the computer all matter, and the available sources do not verify a modern installation method. Owning a disc does not make an obsolete game compatible with a current device.
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How should you choose which one to try?
- For the maze: look for Excel 95-specific historical instructions for the Hall of Tortured Souls; the available account is secondary reporting.
- For the flight game: the Excel 97 sequence is community-documented and has reported failures outside its intended legacy context.
- For the driving game: Dev Hunter has the clearest stated prerequisites, but requires Excel 2000 before SR-1 plus Internet Explorer and DirectX.
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