Cozy Games: 10 Titles That Stand Out in the Genre

Do you like cozy games? Those types of games which have as their main objective getting you to relax, play quietly and without the pressure usually present in other game genres, or maybe even without any story to follow? Well, you’ve come to the right place!

From extremely casual RPGs, that allow you to explore the world and build your life at your pace to games which can be simply a landscaping simulator, we’ve put together a list of ten recommendations of incredible cozy games available on Steam for when you need to escape reality a little bit.

Starting off with a classic, which I’m certain many of you already expected to see on this list. However, Stardew Valley is often present in such lists for a reason! A reference within its niche and popular even among players who prefer other genres, the game places you as the proud new owner of a farm in Pelican Town, left to you by your grandfather, and now you have a new alternative to the life which bothered you so much, working for the telemarketing of a huge corporation: Being a farmer!

Stardew Valley doesn’t give you any time limits, fixed objectives which effectively “stop” the game until they’ve been completed, nor anything of the sort. Of course, there are quests which have only a limited number of days to be turned in, festivals which only happen on certain days of the year, you have to take care of your crops’ cycles and your animals, but you choose, on your rhythm, how will you do everything, or even if you will do so.

You can choose whether you’ll focus more on growing crops or livestock, if you’ll take part in the town’s many events and festivities and your focus will be the social aspects, or if your playstyle will be a combination of both. If you have an adventurous vein, you can opt to explore the mines and face off against dangerous monsters, with the equipment provided by the Adventurer’s Guild, and can even choose between taking the side of or going directly against the big bad of the game, the huge corporation for whom you worked for before moving here, or prefer to follow the path your heart leads you on and find your better half among the inhabitants of Pelican Town, the possibilities are endless!

The game technically never ends, the years go by (one year consisting of 4 seasons, of 28 in-game days each) as you build your life in the peaceful city. It’s a classic for a reason, and just last year the game received an update which brought a ton of new content, and expanded even further what is many people’s favorite cozy game.

But hey, have you taken a look at Stardew Valley and though ”hmm, it’d be perfect if there was a little more magic to it”? Then, look no further because we have not one, but two options of gorgeous games with very similar mechanics and gameplay to that of Stardew! Only with a much more present touch of fantasy.

Sun Haven is the epitome of what you probably imagined with my description in the paragraph above. The game has a gorgeous art style, pixelated and full of details, social mechanics such as relationships, planting, growing and harvesting crops and collecting resources such as wood and stones to craft into more complex items and everything you expect from a farming simulator. And as for what sets it apart? That’s where the magic comes in!

In the character maker, you can choose from an array of different magical species (I was so happy I was able to play as my true self: an elf!) and you learn different magic spells as the game goes on, from combat spells such as Fireball (hold your horses D&D players, it’s just a small, single-target little ball of fire) to spells such as conjuring a rain cloud that waters all your crops for you, sparing you the exhaustive work of watering square by square with the watering can, since we don’t have irrigators here as we do in Stardew Valley.

The Story is another highlight! With a huge city to explore right off the bat, other locations and towns to be unlocked and visited and a large variety of NPCs, each with their unique and interesting visuals and personalities (many of whom you can date, and eventually marry), this world full of fantasy, magic, dragons and a dark threat looming over the city of Sun Haven will definitely win you over!

A small negative point about it is that the developers seem to follow a vision of “quantity over quality”, releasing many DLCs to the game, but leaving behind some unfixed bugs which sometimes can seriously and negatively impact the player’s experience. I’ve personally never encountered such a bug in any of my many hours of playtime, but it’s a relatively common complaint coming from the online community.

Do you enjoy Stardew, but wanted something that felt a little bit more medieval this time, and maybe with some more story to it? If so, Traveller’s Rest is your ideal game.

This game has become one of my favourites as soon as I bought it, right after it was released, and as someone who follows the devs in social media and in the game’s official updates Discord server, in addition to play in real-time all released updates and even some betas, I can assure that Traveller’s Rest can only improve more and more from here!

Initially, the game was a simulator a lot similar to Stardew Valley, with the differential that, in addition to growing crops and gathering raw materials to turn into more sophisticated ones and even machinery, you also have the main gimmick: Your Tavern! You're the person responsible for the Traveller’s Rest Tavern, determines the opening and closing hours each day, and has to serve all the clients and keep your tavern clean meanwhile. Further on in the game, you even get the option to hire locals to help you out, and get a magic broom which keeps your floors clean for you.

Do you think it ends here? No! The game also has the relatively recent story mode, full of intriguing quests and interesting NPCs, some friendly, some not so much… It’s another fantasy world, filled with storylines and creative plots for you to investigate, get emotional and have lots of fun, this one with a much more medieval and less high fantasy setting. Oh, and very important! Just like in Stardew Valley, you can also have a pet animal and pet them every day.

As a last “plus”, as this article was being written, the beta for the online mode of the game was officially released, which will allow you to explore this incredible world and work in your Tavern alongside your friends, expanding the experience even further.

This one is for the Animal Crossing fans! With similar mechanics, of exploring and decorating an island and synchronized with real-world time, offering from 30 to 60 minutes of new daily content and leaving you to your own devices for the rest of the time, Cozy Grove is a life simulator which takes place at a haunted island, where in addition to exploring your surroundings, you also get to meet the ghosts who are trapped there, and help to bring peace to them!

The art is definitely a highlight, all the landscapes are hand-drawn and remind of a less… angled and “creepy” version of Don’t Starve, a game which also has a gorgeous and acclaimed art style. As you help the ghosts the scenery gains life, and the more you explore, decor, fish and can even make friendships and collect small ghost animals, you give back color and joy to the island of Cozy Grove.

Unpacking is definitely a unique game, I’ve never played or seen anything quite like it (and believe me, I’ve looked!!) and since the very second I finished my first playthrough, I already knew it’d certainly make my list of personal favorite games.

During the gameplay, there’s absolutely no dialogue and no text to be found and read, the only text present is a single quote in each transition between the game’s stages. And, above everything else, Unpacking is an absolute perfect example of “environmental storytelling”, the scenery being used to tell a story, and it’s used in the best way possible.

Let’s get to the gameplay, then. The game consists uniquely of unpacking boxes after the character’s moved, following the eight times the main character has done so throughout her life, and while we unpack every box in every room of each house and put everything in their place, we also accompany the different phases she goes through in her life. The objects which change from move to move, or remain present throughout the years, go missing after one of the moves, etc, all tell a story, each of them transmits something about our character, be it about her personality and her tastes or her clothing style and her work, or even about her relationships.

We follow her life for twenty-one years, meeting our protagonist little by little, and the game sets itself apart by telling her story masterfully. Even though we never even get to know her “canonical” name, by the end of the game we know so much about her, about how she’s lived and everything she’s gone through, about the things she’s always liked, the hobbies she acquired from past roommates and her achievements in life, that the feeling we get by the end of it is truly that of having a new close friend, the kind you know everything about their life.

It’s truly a unique and incredible game, and I’d love to see more games in this style being released!

Do you like dioramas? If you do, then this is simply the perfect game for you! Tiny Glade is a game focused only on building, you can alter the area’s topography at will, and you have tools to create walls, fences, buildings, towers, windows, doors, trees, flowers, pathways and water, and you can also add light posts, banners and flags. The rest is completely up to your imagination!

If you pass the water tool through a structure, that section of it will turn into an integrated bridge. If you join a water spot, a short round wall around it and two wood stakes from the wooden fence tool on top of everything, you have a well. The size of individual buildings is limited, but you can build buildings on top of buildings on top of buildings, add a few towers on top of everything, and have yourself a huge castle!!

As you create “habitable” spaces, that is, create any sort of building with doors and windows, decorative items start to spawn, such as flower pots, barrels, benches, fruit stands, huge pumpkins, stones, logs… all sorts of things, and you can move absolutely everything around to create the perfect environment!

And to make the ambiance even better, you can choose the “type” of climate you want to build in. Do you want something bright, sunny and full of flowers? Then, the “Flowery” is perfect for you! Want a place with snow? We got you covered in it, with “Winter”. Do you like something darker, with dead trees everywhere and an “old magic” feeling to it? We got “Olden”. And in addition to that, the game proposes a new “daily theme” every day, in which you’re dropped in a map with a setting and a theme suggestion for you to build and create your own environment matching it! The new terrains always come with one building to inspire you, the last one I’ve played was “Adventurer’s Guild” and the themes proposed are always quite interesting!

Oh, and there’s a night/day cycle, which you can pause at any time of day if you want that perfect golden hour to build your creations in. And you can also pet the sheep which will always be present, no matter the climate or terrain, which is also a bonus.

This one’s premise is a bit different! You’re “summoned” by a species of space gnomes (don’t question it) to breathe new life into an old garden, the world where they live, which has been abandoned by its previous caretaker.

And then, it’s only up to you to restore the garden to its former glory. Using varied types of terrain you can create (grass, flowers, lakes, etc), you shape the garden into whatever you want, and you use these elements to create ecosystems which in turn attract all kinds of different animals to live in and give life to your garden! Not only animals, but as you expand and upgrade your garden, more gnomes go back to living in it, and you discover artifacts which help you in your mission and pieces of the fascinating history of the garden and its inhabitants.

Oh, and you have one single problem on your journey! Your Nemesis, the game’s enemy, which causes corruption and decay in your garden, which can reflect as an ecosystem being damaged, the animals being unhappy or some part of the terrain becoming corrupted, and you need to take care of these issues before they become a serious threat to your garden. But in case you’re not a fan of these types of mechanics which put “pressure” on the player, the game has different modes and balancings: a story mode and a sandbox mode, which gives you much more creative freedom, and in the sandbox you have an option 100% free of story or tasks to complete and one without any threats whatsoever to your garden, and you can simply be the gardener you’ve always dreamt of being, in peace.

Horticular has a free demo available on Steam, which gives you a pretty good idea of how the full game works.

This is another unique entry in this list! Dorfromantik is a puzzle and strategic building game, but make it relaxing.

There’s no story mode, because the game itself has no story. It consists of placing hexagonal terrain tiles, matching one another one by one, forming villages and landscapes and completing tasks such as placing X trees together or X water tiles in sequence, and as you build the world whichever way you prefer, you unlock new landscapes, types of terrain, buildings and even animals and small animated boats and trains, which move through the map like a gorgeous and huge animated model.

The “classic” game mode gives you a limited number of tiles, which you increase as you gain new ones by completing goals, and the game is basically infinite, your highscore only depends on your skill and strategy to get more and more tiles and build more and more, but again, if objectives and limitations aren’t your cup of tea, the game offers a customizable mode, in which you can select from the frequence each type of tile will appear on your tile to the size of the starting pile (which can simply be infinite).

So, do you want a challenging and interesting puzzle game that will test your strategic thinking? We got it covered! Do you want a 100% chill game, just to relax while you build your landscape and discover new ones? Covered as well! And all of that in a game with a gorgeous and charming art direction and a well done and immersive soundtrack.

Have you ever thought about being a horticulturist, the owner of a store that sells mysterious, magical plants, each with their own distinctive uses, many clients with their afflictions and specific needs, having an entire world to explore and on top of that, playing a crucial role in a dark and bloody battle against the forces of the occult? Strange Horticulture brings all of that together in a cozy game which will certainly appeal to those who like a “darker” aesthetic.

After inheriting a store in a dark and exotic small town, you start off with only a diary from the past owner, containing plant descriptions and their uses, and a handful of plants in your shelves. As new clients arrive, you have to match the plants to what the customer wants (and their uses range from plants that cure headaches to plants that can open any lock. Go figure), and go on to find new entries for the diary, new plants and new clues, in a game rich with great storytelling that brings, through the characters who visit your store daily, an fascinating story and eight different ending options, and the one you’ll get depends on a few choices you make throughout the game. Spending hours finding and cataloguing magical plants can be surprisingly relaxing!

If you’re in doubt whether you’ll like this game, it has a free demo available on Steam, where you can play the first full in-game day and get the feeling of it.

Following on a similar note, we have Potion Craft, which allows you to go even further beyond! You’re the Alchemist in a small town, and you need to help and sell potions to the townspeople who come to you with their needs, in addition to being able to explore the world of alchemy at your own will! Mixing up any ingredients, creating new potions, growing new plants in your garden and taking care of your store are all things you can do in this game.

The potions are created through a “map” mechanic, where each ingredient added to your cauldron opens up part of the way, and you have to figure out what to mix and in what order to make your path to your objective and avoid obstacles which can ruin your potions. Also, in the store portion of it, you can bargain with your clients who come to purchase your famous elixirs, choose not to service clients with reasons… well below the ethics line, let’s put it that way (or cater to them all and get a reputation for yourself), and get your shop to be more and more well-known, and with a good or bad reputation, depending on your choices.

You’re also frequently visited by merchants who bring you new ingredients, and you can unlock an alchemy lab, more areas on your garden to plant and grow these ingredients yourself and not have to spend all of your hard-earned money on them, such as a cave for growing fungi and a lake for algae and aquatic plants, and, the most important aspect for the “cozy” part of it, there’s no time pressure. You can take as long as you want and experiment as much as you want, the clients won’t go away.

Both games below haven’t been officially fully released yet, and for that reason, I, personally, haven’t played them yet, unlike all the previous ones in this list. However, I’ve included both of them here due to being games that are anxiously awaited by the cozy gamers' community, and both of them promise a lot! They are:

Little Witch in the Woods

Little Witch in the Woods is a life and exploration simulator. In it, you step into the shoes of Ellie, a witch apprentice. Learn spells and magic, explore this enchanted world, help out the people who also live in the village you’ve moved to study, with conversation, gifts and relationship mechanics, and eventually become a Witch, capital W!

Oh, and as a good witch, you have a great connection to cats! You can talk to many felines around the world, and each of them have their own strong personality and unique tastes, a huge attractive to those who, like myself, are crazy about cats (and enjoy a good game where you can pet the animals).

The game is in early access in Steam for now, so if you’re curious and want to play it right away, just keep in mind that the game is still in development, may have a few bugs, and it’s not yet complete.

Tales of the Shire: A Lord of The Rings Game

This one caused one of the biggest uproars I’ve ever seen on social media when it was announced, both among those who enjoy cozy games and among the Lord of the Rings community, who went completely ballistic over it, and it’s not even an overreaction, since even though it’s only planned to release on March 23rd this year, it promises an immersive experience in a life simulator taking place in one of, if not the most charming part of all Middle Earth: The Shire!

Customize your own Hobbit and go on your new adventure! Help the village where you live to prosper and become a reference in the Shire, decorate your house and your garden however you want, make lasting friendships, explore the picturesque landscapes and locations and, as a good Hobbit, eat a lot!!

This game’s art was another highlight which caught a lot of attention, in a charming 3D style that lends everything that very characteristic touch of the Shire we all know and love.

The Cozy Games niche has grown considerably in the last few years, allowing players not only fun and relaxing experiences, but even becoming a tool to deal with day-to-day anxieties and frustrations. And I speak due to personal experience here, there’s nothing that relaxes me exactly quite as much as sitting down in front of my PC after a long day and spending a few hours tending to my crops, creating magic potions or simply tending to a beautiful garden, built exactly the way I wanted it to be. And petting kittens.

So, did you know of or have you played any of the games in this list? Do you have any other recommendations which didn’t show up here? Leave it in the comments and let’s grow even further this community of fans of such incredible games!

Thanks for reading, and see you next time!