Interactive Comfort Food – The Best Cozy Games to Relax and Unwind

Terra Nil

• Release Date — March 28, 2023
• Publisher — Devolver Digital
• Developer — Free Lives, Clockwork Acorn
• Review Aggregate Score — 79% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 87% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, Nintendo Switch

Free Lives’ Terra Nil takes what’s already a typically fairly relaxing game genre, the city-builder, and flips it on its head. Rather than building up a sprawling metropolis, Terra Nil places players in a land ravaged by time and the effects of human occupation, tasking them with first restoring the environment to its natural splendor and then removing any trace of human involvement to let the land reclaim itself. It’s a clever twist on the genre that results in each stage being a sort of “environmental conservation puzzle”, challenging players to figure out how to return the land to its natural state. Between its low-stakes gameplay and an excellent soundtrack, Terra Nil perfectly captures the inherent beauty of a natural landscape devoid of any civilization, and it’s a nice change of pace from an increasingly urbanized world.

Bear and Breakfast

• Release Date — July 28, 2022
• Publisher — Armor Games Studios
• Developer — Gummy Cat
• Review Aggregate Score — 72% (Mixed or Average)
• Steam User Score — 90% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — PC, Nintendo Switch

The very idea of visiting a bed and breakfast is meant to elicit feelings of cozy relaxation, and owning and operating one seems like it would be a dream come true for cozy game enthusiasts. Bear and Breakfast taps into that desire by letting players both design and manage their own bed and breakfast, right in the middle of an adorable cartoon forest with a loveable bear as their avatar. Despite being a cozy game, Bear and Breakfast has some pretty deep mechanics tied into its design and building portions, and the management aspects (keeping guests happy, making sure the bed and breakfast has the right amenities, etc.) are engaging without ever feeling like they’re too high stakes for the game to lose its relaxing vibe. Bear and Breakfast is right up your alley if you’re a fan of the Two-Point games but are looking for something less stressful.

Islanders

• Release Date — April 4, 2019
• Publisher — Coatsink
• Developer — Coatsink, Grizzly Games, Stage Clear Studios
• Review Aggregate Score — 82% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 94% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

One of my personal favorite cozy games is designer Friedemann’s incredible Islanders. Islanders is another city-builder, but it’s one where there are no stakes other than running out of buildings or space, cutting players loose to build the island city of their dreams with an easy-to-understand gameplay loop and some excellent, user-friendly presentation. In Islanders, players are working toward a score, which is achieved by placing the right kinds of buildings next to each other, subsequently unlocking the next phase of development. There are no real “wrong” ways to design a city, there’s no penalty for failure, and a new island is never more than just a few clicks away. Islanders‘ gameplay is already incredibly relaxing and rewarding, but its visuals and soundtrack only add to the “cozy” feeling it elicits.

LEGO: Builder’s Journey

• Release Date — June 22, 2021
• Publisher — LEGO Games
• Developer — Light Brick Studio
• Review Aggregate Score — 79% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 83% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Building LEGO sets is one of the best ways to relax and unwind in the real world (hence why millions of adults and children around the globe continue to make LEGO one of the most successful toy brands) and LEGO video games are no exception. While the licensed LEGO games are excellent and fairly low-stakes for action-adventure games, they’re not necessarily “cozy” games. One LEGO game that is, though, is the excellent LEGO Builder’s Journey, which is a relaxing LEGO-themed puzzle game about reuniting a father and son after they get separated on a hike. Aside from its fun and low-stakes puzzle-platforming gameplay, LEGO Builder’s Journey is an excellent digital approximation of using your imagination to build miniature LEGO dioramas, and it has a heartfelt story to boot.

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action

• Release Date — June 21, 2016
• Publisher — Ysbryd Games, PLAYISM
• Developer — Sukeban Games
• Review Aggregate Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 97% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch

Don’t let the subtitle of VA-11 Hall-A fool you into thinking it’s not a cozy game, as there’s very little “action” to be found but definitely a lot of cyberpunk bartending. In VA-11 Hall-A, you take on the role of a bartender willing to lend an ear to a never-ending series of interesting patrons in a dystopian cyberpunk city, listening to their problems and giving advice while serving up their favorite drinks.

Getting to know your regulars and learning about their lives is the main draw of the gameplay, and it’s just a heartfelt and rewarding experience with absolutely no stakes to worry about. Mixing the drinks is as simple as pulling up recipe guides, and if you make a mistake you can start over at no penalty. Sometimes, making the “wrong” drink for someone opens up interesting and unexpected conversations, meaning even “failure” has its own rewards in VA-11 Hall-A.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

• Release Date — March 20, 2020
• Publisher — Nintendo
• Developer — Nintendo
• Review Aggregate Score — 90% (Universal Acclaim)
• Steam User Score — N/A
• Platforms — Nintendo Switch

Nintendo’s latest entry in the long-running cozy life-sim series Animal Crossing arrived at what can only be described as the perfect time. Launching on March 20, 2020 right as most people around the globe were stuck inside due to COVID-19 lockdowns, Animal Crossing: New Horizons offered players the kind of peaceful and wholesome escape from a dour reality we all desperately needed. But even long after its moment of viral popularity, Animal Crossing: New Horizons continues to be one of the best cozy games available on the Switch, with Nintendo continuing to support the title via regular updates and seasonal events that can pull even the most lapsed players back to their island paradise. Just talking about it makes me want to go plant some trees, dig up some fossils, and do some fishing.

Summerhouse

• Release Date — March 8, 2024
• Publisher — Future Friends Games
• Developer — Friedemann
• Review Aggregate Score — 76% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 95% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC

Following his work on Islanders, indie game designer Friedemann would begin work on his latest game, this year’s excellent Summerhouse. Summerhouse is arguably even lower stakes than Islanders, with absolutely no traditional gameplay elements like scores or objectives to speak of. Instead, Summerhouse presents players with beautifully rendered pixel art environments and lets them build the 2D diorama of their dreams. Combining different elements in your design of each house results in unlocking new building blocks across different categories, and the ability to easily undo any moves encourages players to experiment and let their creativity run wild. Summerhouse is not the only virtual diorama builder on this list, but it is undoubtedly one of the best in that growing genre.

Tiny Glade

• Release Date — September 23, 2024
• Publisher — Pounce Light
• Developer — Pounce Light
• Review Aggregate Score — 74% (Mixed or Average)
• Steam User Score — 97% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC

Many people, myself included, consider Pounce Light’s Tiny Glade to be the best game in the burgeoning “diorama builder” subgenre of cozy games, and playing the title for any amount of time makes it easy to see why. On top of its pitch-perfect visual presentation (that makes each glade look like a genuine diorama come to live on your computer screen), Tiny Glade features perhaps the most intuitive and user-friendly menus and UI for a game of its ilk, making it all too easy to whittle away hours crafting the perfect whimsical castle scene of your dreams. Like just about every other game on this list, there are no stakes for failure, no pressure, and no objectives other than “have fun”, and Tiny Glade is about as close as you can get to building a diorama without having to break out an old shoebox.

Toem

• Release Date — September 17, 2021
• Publisher — Something We Made, popagenda
• Developer — Something We Made
• Review Aggregate Score — 79% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 99% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Toem is a game that thrives based solely on its central mechanic, using a camera to take pictures and progress through a charming and whimsical world. As the best cozy games do, Toem invites players to immerse themselves in its world and get to know its inhabitants, and it’s an incredibly rewarding experience to do so, topped off with an incredible visual style and an excellent soundtrack. For a black-and-white game, it’s remarkable that Toem and its characters are so colorful, proving that it just takes the right kind of atmosphere and gameplay loop to breathe life into what would otherwise be a fairly rote experience.

Station to Station

• Release Date — October 3, 2023
• Publisher — Prismatika
• Developer — Galaxy Grove
• Review Aggregate Score — 80% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 90% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — PC

For anyone who has ever seen a massive model train build and thought “Man, this looks fun”, Station to Station is 100% a game for you. Rather than needing the space and resources to craft a real-world model train setup, Station to Station lets players do the same thing digitally. You start with just a few buildings in a rural environment, gradually adding train stations and seeing railways spring up that allow for expansion and building. Eventually, you go from simple farmland to highly detailed environments with complex rail systems, all rendered in stunning voxel art. The gameplay of Station to Station is both relaxing and rewarding, and it’s the perfect game to boot up and shut your brain off to, letting its presentation and rewarding puzzle loop propel you forward.

Dorfromantik

• Release Date — April 28, 2022
• Publisher — Toukana Interactive
• Developer — Toukana Interactive
• Review Aggregate Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 96% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC, Nintendo Switch

Many of the best cozy games fit squarely into the puzzle genre, as it’s both mentally engaging and low-stakes without ever running the risk of becoming boring. One of the best titles to mix both puzzle gameplay and city-building is Dorfromantik, which utilizes a unique system based on hexagonal tiles. Players start with a small grid of tiles and a stack of tiles they can add, gradually building out their world and connecting disparate parts of the map to one another using the right tiles. While there is some strategy involved in maximizing the efficiency of your map, Dorfromantik never really punishes players for making the “wrong” moves, instead focusing on giving them multiple routes to victory based on their own spatial awareness and vision for how the world should develop.

A Short Hike

• Release Date — July 30, 2019
• Publisher — adamgryu
• Developer — adamgryu
• Review Aggregate Score — 88% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 99% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

One of the more appealing aspects of cozy games is that they let players experience them at their own pace, taking as little or as much time as they like to immerse themselves in their worlds and get to know their characters. A Short Hike is a title that embodies these aspects perfectly, letting players climb to reach the summit of a mountain at whatever pace they like, taking whichever path they feel is best. Along the way, your avatar will meet the other inhabitants of the world, learning a little bit about bout them and themselves while helping each other to reach the summit. Essentially, A Short Hike isthe anti-Celeste, a game about climbing a mountain where the only objective is to enjoy the experience and take it all in while it lasts.

Spiritfarer

• Release Date — August 18, 2020
• Publisher — Thunder Lotus Games
• Developer — Thunder Lotus Games
• Review Aggregate Score — 84% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 95% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

For a game that centers around death, it’s surprising how hopeful and peaceful Spiritfarer can make you feel. In Spiritfarer, players take on the role of the titular ferryman responsible for ushering the recently deceased to the afterlife. As you complete objectives for your passengers, you get to know more about them, their past, their regrets, and their views on life and what its meaning is. Fittingly, Spiritfarer is an incredibly spiritual and heartfelt experience, and it’s a phenomenal game to help people who might be grieving over the loss of a loved one. On top of its beauty and thematic relevance, Spiritfarer is also just a great cozy management sim with some excellent visuals, strong writing, and a relaxing soundtrack.

Unpacking

• Release Date — November 2, 2021
• Publisher — Humble Games
• Developer — Witch Beam
• Review Aggregate Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 93% (Very Positive)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

Witch Beam’s Unpacking seems, on the surface, to be pretty simple. Each level is a puzzle where you unpack boxes, organize items on shelves, and try to find the right place for each belonging that allows everything to fit in a limited space. It’s a puzzle we all have tried to solve in real life at one point or another, and Unpacking brilliantly taps into the more organizationally inclined by letting them envision efficient room setups.

More than its gameplay loop, though, Unpacking takes players through the story of a girl as she goes from her childhood bedroom through college and, eventually, adulthood and her own family, using subtle but effective environmental storytelling to paint a picture of her life. Ultimately, Unpacking helps us realize that our possessions are more than just “stuff”, but instead artifacts of our personal history.

Stardew Valley

• Release Date — February 26, 2016
• Publisher — ConcernedApe
• Developer — ConcernedApe
• Review Aggregate Score — 89% (Generally Favorable)
• Steam User Score — 98% (Overwhelmingly Positive)
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

There’s a reason Stardew Valley is so successful, and it comes down to its perfectly cozy vibe. Like similar RPG/farming-sim hybrid Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley proves that there’s appropriately fertile ground to be farmed for a game based around tilling the land and harvesting crops. What makes Stardew Valley so addictive is that players virtually never run out of things to do. But even with a massive list of potential activities, none of it ever feels egregious or pointless. Instead, every activity in Stardew Valley has a useful and worthwhile reward, continually building toward the game’s progression loop. Stardew Valley is undeniably cozy, but never boring, offering up one compelling reason to play after another. It’s not surprising most players average more than 100 hours in its world.