Summary
There are games out there for every mood under the sun. Games that make you feel powerful as you fight off swarms of enemies, games that make you feel energized with bright colors and soundtracks, and even cozy games that soothe you with easy gameplay and beautiful graphics.
While cozy games are a mainstay genre in gaming, every so often, games show up that are surprisingly cozy. They may not have meant to be at the time of their creation, butthanks to great settings, simple gameplay, or other facets, they have become somewhat cozy despite not being expected to be so. Here are some of the best ones in that rather surprising category.
Your character wakes up with no memories, in a place they don’t know, and is immediately beset by spiders, skeletons, zombies, and exploding creatures. You face starvation and the aforementioned monsters as you go on a quest to defeat an interdimensional dragon, so it’s not all that cozy sounding, is it?
But, that hasn’t stopped people from doing some amazing, and cozy, things in the game’s many years. Why not build a house, raise some sheep, and maybe even put your and your partner’s beds together?
The post-apocalypse doesn’t sound like the place for ample coziness, and that’s true. But, in Fallout 4, in those moments between searching for your lost son, and defeating deadly mutants, there are some relaxing moments.
Whether you’re at Sanctuary, the scenic Kingsport Lighthouse, or even the cozy-named Hangman’s Alley, it is nice to do some relaxing building up your settlements. Chat with other survivors, pet Dogmeat, or watch a radiation storm roll in; soothing, isn’t it?
8Sons Of The Forest
Time Away From It All
A tropical island vacation sounds pretty cozy, and it definitely can be in Sons Of The Forest, as long as you avoid the terrible mutants that also call the island home. Oh, and the cannibals too, can’t forget those.
True Sons Of The Forest follows up on the original’ssurvival genre facets, but it can be surprisingly cozy to find your place in the titular forest and start building a home. Maybe, even with your favorite companion? It’s a fun distraction from the aforementioned cannibals and mutants.
Speaking of island adventures, few have done the setting as well as Far Cry 3. It even starts off as a tropical vacation, until Vaas and his pirates get in the way of your leisure time. Still, throughout the story, you can find some time to wind down here and there.
Hunting, swimming, even hang-gliding; it’s all still there for you, so it may not be the “sitting down with a book and a warm cup of tea” kind of cozy. But, you can make the most of your character being trapped on an island, especially with those scenic views.
Surprisingly cozy games don’t always have to be open-world, high-definition games, and the perfect example of that is Terraria; it may not be the most surprisingly cozy game on this list, but like Minecraft, the combat and plot make it fairly out of the blue. There are plenty of monsters and bosses throughout the game to defeat as you upgrade your weaponry, and there are some cozy adventures to go on too.
Exploring can be a lot of fun, as well as meeting the villagers nearby, and making a home of your own. After any of your forays into the world below, you may come back to your cozy house (or mansion) and settle down by your fireplace and bookshelves, which sounds like quite a snug experience.
5Subnautica
A Little Sand & Sea
A nice day on the water can be quite a relaxing time, both in real life and in Subnautica. If it wasn’t for all the giant sea monsters trying to ruin your time, then Subnautica would be a perfectly cozy game but, as it is, it’s a surprisingly cozy game still.
Go for a swim, explore beautiful coastal areas, and maybe even find a fishy friend or two. The survival horror genre, on average, does pretty well at having cozy moments of silence sprinkled in, but Subnautica takes that to a different level.
4Dredge
Not Your Average Fishing Trip
There are plenty of fishing games out there for a nice time unwinding, but none of them mix that fun pastime with cosmic horror monsters better than Dredge. You get to pilot your small boat through dark seas, avoiding monsters and other pitfalls while you do.
However, it is, in its heart, still a fishing game, so there’s a fun minigame, and evena little resource managementto keep you afloat. It’s surprising how many fun and nearly serene moments occur between almost getting eaten by horrors from the deep.
Dragons are awakening from the dead, a civil war that threatens to tear apart the country, and dark schemes hidden in dank caves throughout Skyrim. Yet, there are still times when you’ll be exploring when it feels like a cozy winter’s day.
There are some beautiful locations, which, when mixed with the great soundtrack, can really take your breath away. Especially if you take the time tonot fast-traveland wander through Skyrim, or even begin building a house and hearth of your own.
The Legend of Zelda series has undergone plenty of changes since the first game in the 80s. One of those changes has been the opening up of Hyrule, letting Link explore more freely throughout his journey.
Yes, Hyrule does need to be saved, but a few hours here and there of relaxation won’t hurt anything. Exploring the fields and hills around you, meeting the locals, and even building random contraptions are all great pastimes if you don’t want to focus on the combat or main story for a while.
There are few open-world games as impressive as Red Dead Redemption 2, and open-world games are one of the best genres to find surprisingly cozy games. Red Dead 2 is definitely not an exception to that, showing a great plot, plenty of side quests, gun-slinging, robberies, and fist-fights.
Between those moments though, there are a lot of cozy things to get involved in; fixing up your camp, cooking food by the campfire, or even brushing your favorite horse. With so much going on, you can get lost in all the little moments between dastardly schemes, and as the sun sets and Arthur groans as he sits down next to the campfire, it’s hard not to feel at ease.
