Nintendo Switch Just Added The Coziest-Looking Game That's Anything But

"I still remember the first time I saw The Secret of Nimh. After a childhood of watching cartoons about cute, anthropomorphic animals singing and dancing happily, I settled in for what my parents must have believed was another one of those, only to be confronted with the most harrowing movie I'd ever seen at that point in my life. Nothing else has quite matched the shock of that formative movie-watching experience (except for maybe Return to Oz), but it's certainly been on my mind as I play the adorable-on-the-surface survival game Winter Burrow."

"And, yes, that's all there, but it does leave out the capitalistic exploitation, childhood trauma, and constant threat of hypothermia, not to mention the spiders several times your size hunting you down. Winter Burrow may look like a cozy life sim in the vein of Stardew Valley, but it's got a lot more in common with games like Don't Starve. You'll knit cut outfits and decorate your home, sure, but "farming" is limited to growing mushrooms in your basement, and the game spends much more time focused on difficult wilderness survival than the comforts of home."

"There's plenty of reason to be fatigued by cozy games these days. Not only are there so many of them they seem to drown out just about every other genre, but they've been the subject of a lot of deserved criticism for being shallow escapism at best, or self-centered conservatism at worst. Beginning with your character fleeing the dangerous city to live off the land in his childhood home, Winter Burrow seems at first to fall into all of those traps, but quickly becomes a counterpoint to them instead."

A mouse returns to restore their childhood burrow, exploring, gathering resources, crafting, knitting warm sweaters, baking pies, and meeting locals. Cozy activities coexist with capitalistic exploitation, childhood trauma, and a constant risk of hypothermia. Massive predatory spiders and limited farming—restricted to mushrooms grown in a basement—shift emphasis toward difficult wilderness survival over domestic comfort. The game mixes elements familiar from life sims with the existential threats of survival titles, forcing careful resource management, risk mitigation, and confronting darker thematic material. Any sense of coziness is earned through struggle and careful play.

Read at Inverse