Oregon Trail II
Oregon Trail II, MECC's 1995 sequel on CD-ROM, lets you travel the Oregon, California or Mormon trails in any year from 1840 to 1860, with 25 occupations.
- Year
- 1995
- Developer
- MECC
- Platforms
- Windows, Macintosh, Web (DOSBox)
The game starts right away and downloads the rest while you play.
What's new in Oregon Trail II
The original games sent everyone down the same road in the same year. Oregon Trail II opens the map. You choose a year between 1840 and 1860, a starting town, a destination on the Oregon, California or Mormon trails, and a kind of wagon. MECC counted over 100 possible routes. Travel is easier in later years, when there are more towns and trading posts along the way.
You also build your own character. There are 25 occupations, and you spend points on skills that make good events more likely and bad ones less likely. You name the people in your party and set their ages. Then you pick a level of play: Greenhorn, Adventurer or Trail Guide.
On the trail
Oregon Trail II asks for many more decisions. When someone falls ill or has an accident, the game stops and gives you a set of choices. You can talk with other settlers along the way and ask their advice, and you can trade with them.
Outfitting matters more too. Stores offer a long list of goods, and you can start with a ready-made package of basic supplies or pick every item yourself. Everything adds weight, and when the wagon reaches its limit you have to leave something behind. The raft trip down the Columbia River is a much bigger challenge than in the earlier games.
Making Oregon Trail II
Wayne Studer, who designed the game and wrote and researched it, spent months reading trail diaries, books and articles and following the old routes on detailed maps. The team decided early to cover the California and Mormon trails as well as the Oregon Trail, with more than 200 landmarks instead of the 15 or so in earlier versions.
The core team was Studer, producer Craig Copley, lead programmer Steve Splinter and lead artist Charolyn Kapplinger, who had also drawn the 1985 game. Programmers, artists, sound technicians, actors and musicians joined them, more than a hundred people in all, over nearly two years.
Playing it here
The version on this site is the 25th Anniversary Limited Edition, version 1.3 of Oregon Trail II, running in Windows 3.1 right in your web browser. It is free, and you do not need an account to play.
Click inside the game to capture the mouse, and press Esc when you want your pointer back. As a guest, your saved games stay in this web browser. If you are 13 or older, an optional account keeps them for you.
Notable systems
- The Oregon, California and Mormon trails, with over 100 possible routes
- Any starting year from 1840 to 1860
- 25 occupations and more than a dozen skills to choose from
- Three levels of play: Greenhorn, Adventurer and Trail Guide
- More than 200 landmarks and over 5,000 pictures, including photographs
- Spoken dialogue from more than a hundred characters
- A built-in guidebook and a travel journal you can write in
- A wagon weight limit and a long list of supplies to buy
More from the game
30 frames from Oregon Trail II, at the resolution it originally ran at. Pick one to see it at full size.