One of my favorite games is A Short Hike. It's not the same kind of game as Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, etc, but the writing is brilliant and it always makes me content whenever I play it.
I really wish more games like it existed.
I have heard two theories on how to treat anxiety:
1) Paul Gilbert's theory that the brain's 'threat system' is overdeveloped and the 'soothing system' underdeveloped, and the right treatment is to stimulate the 'soothing system'.
2) Steven Quartz' theory that the brain's evaluation of risk has become distorted, and that the right treatment is any form of 'risky play' that you can tolerate; with an emphasis on being able to feel you've achieved something after taking (reasonable) risks.
(Both of these are about how you reduce anxiety in the long term, not how you cope with it if you're overwhelmed in the moment).
Video games could in theory work for either - but not the same ones. Under the second theory, coziness may work in the moment, but seeking coziness could inhibit long term reduction of anxiety.
I don't know which theory has the more evidence. ( Also I'm not an expert and the consensus theory might be something else entirely. )
Well for me on the other hand, when I was working in tech on backend data services that needed constant maintenance and optimization, I loved nothing more than coming home and…
…Optimizing my Factorio base supply chain until two in the morning.
Going in the complete opposite direction, getting through Elden Ring two summers ago really helped me through what was the worst heartbreak of my life, an undoubtably stressful and anxious time for me.
Breath of the Wild felt this way for me. Sure, you can fight stuff, but it’s often optional and most of the game is walking around in nature and exploring the world. I hadn’t played anything of note in over a decade, and then probably spent over 1,000 hours in BotW.
During the worst of my depression, all I could play was House Flipper. Cleaning virtual homes helped a bit when I didn’t have the energy to clean mine. Also, watching calm videos about nature on YouTube. Taught me that most of my mental issues are due to living in a city and unable to recharge by being in contact with Mother Nature (something about fractals vs the right angles of man-made objects)
The fact that cozy games are all the “rage” these days says a lot about our society and the mental state of our youth.
Though depression has lessened, I don’t have the appetite for big gaming experiences any more. My zen retreat these days is TrackMania and nothing comes close to it to the sense of peace, silence and flow I get while playing that game, even if I suck. Strongly recommended to any squirrel brained, over-stressed knowledge worker.
My cozy recommendation: Creating landscapes out of tiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorfromantik
I have long lamented the over use of combat in games, not for pacifist ideology, it's just a cop-out as a game mechanic for a lot of games. The medium can represent a chasm of possibilities but usually all the focus goes of AAA titles goes into combat.
Which is to say the indie game and cozy game niches respectively have a lot of scope, because their possible gameplay is "everything that isn't combat", and I welcome the variety and creativity.
I think coziness is an underrated aspect of gaming, maybe because gaming is commonly depicted as fast-paced and frenetic. In fact, coziness was also an underrated reason that World of Warcraft was very popular. Unless you were in a top raiding guild or PvP, most gameplay matched at least one of the aspects listed in TFA; some flavor of "tidying up" and "community" all the while not being too challenging.
A couple of other aspects of coziness were those of exploration and social interaction, glossed over in the article but a big part of MMOs. Exploration and solo questing were almost meditative in nature. You could mix and match socialization, questing and exploration to find your preferred flavor of coziness.
Gotta say, Animal Crossing during Covid was a god send. I spent a lot of time in that game just putzing around and taking in the world. I'm not traditionally a person who enjoys those types of games, but the routine of hopping in every morning while I had coffee and every evening while I was winding down really lowered my stress level during an exceptionally stressful time in everyone's lives.
Surprised not to see Tiny Glade mentioned as a reference game in the comments here… it’s truly the definition of cozy. For anyone not familiar, we really need more games hyper focused on cozy/relaxing: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2198150/Tiny_Glade/
This was difficult to read in Firefox without reader mode. No mention of that tiny town building game I've been looking for again (non-gridded, very adaptive, kind of medieval), which is shame because I completely forgot its name.
EDIT: It's tiny glade
Are point-and-click games considered “cozy”? They often provide a relaxing experience—similar to reading a book, but with an added sense of agency in the narrative. Classic examples include the Broken Sword series, Monkey Island, and Grim Fandango. More recent titles like Disco Elysium might also fit.
This video does a good job exploring what makes the genre so appealing. [0]
As someone who's put an embarrassing number of hours into Stardew Valley, this all really resonates. Cozy games give you this weirdly powerful illusion of control and calm - your farm, your pace, your little pixelated life that somehow feels safer than the real one. It's not just escapism - it's like a reset button for your brain. I love that the article highlights how these games aren't necessarily "easy," just low-stress. They let you engage deeply without the constant threat-response loop that most traditional games (or life) tend to trigger.
For me Mutatzione[0] was incredible and appeared at a time in my life where I was in a very dark place. I discovered one saturday morning, bought it and played it the whole day. It's short, it's sweet, the art is beautiful. It's not super cozy in the traditional sense, but it has a lot of calm, serenity and it was exactly what I needed that day.
I highly recommend Dragon Quest Builders to anyone who enjoys (or might enjoy) Minecraft even a little bit. It can reliably make me feel like a kid with a new Lego set for hundreds of consecutive hours.
Killer Feature #1 is the room system, which can be a great source of inspiration if you don't know what you want to build. Killer Feature #2 is the overall charm you would expect from a modern Dragon Quest game, especially the NPCs. DQB1 has the better story mode (in my opinion), while DQB2 gives you much more freedom to build.
So can ultra-violent games. I guess it depends on your vibe.
Come to think of it, maybe that's part of why Doom and Animal Crossing had their Barbenheimer moment a few years back.
Maybe games do have something special because you have to be more actively engaged and empathizing with coziness part puts us in a calming mood. But it seems obvious to me that anything that you can engage with has a similar effect and games are just one type of media. Books, movies, music can do the same thing too, you just have to know how to get in on it and not suffer through it if it doesn’t click the first time. I don’t think it’s only the cozy part that brings the benefits but rather what effects that media or genre has on you at that moment in time. Over time what bring me calm and comfort has drifted somewhat.
If you're into this kind of music, I highly recommend checking out the genre "Comfy synth" or "Dungeonsynth".
Some artists include "Grandma's Cottage", "Shire Oak", "Mushroom Grandpa" etc.
I really like potion craft, it really hits the optimization part of my brain without feeling grindy or stressful.
The gaming loop is about using the right subpaths using resources to reach a destination while avoiding obstacles, and slowly improving your resources options and quantity, at the end of the game it looks a bit like the traveling salesman problem. Also liked this series on YouTube: https://youtu.be/d_JfzuJzUFE?si=pifLxMFo4itOihdK
My goto for relaxing is "Lonely Mountains Downhill" for the Switch. It's so relaxing, you can hear the nature and there's no background music. It's a third-person biking game.
Myst and Riven are surely the poster children for this. They’re practically ASMR and you can just chill on any screen and enjoy it without fear of anything happening.
Highly recommend this charming unpacking game.
Kingdom Come Deliverance: 2. Oh, my lord, if you're remotely into Medieval realism and RPGs you'll be floored. Amazing escapism.
Stardew Valley helped my non-gamer partner so much during the pandemic.
It's funnily enough the opposite for me, people always give me weird looks when I say that Lovecraft is my favorite author to read when I'm anxious or stressed but there's something cathartic and honest about it.
"Cozy games" actually always unnerve me, they give me this uncanny valley feeling of "what are they trying to hide from me here, what am I not supposed to think about", like can I actually go and walk out from the farm or is this a Never Let me Go or Truman Show situation. Granted maybe this is a lesson of not having your kids grow up on Lovecraft but I've always found it hilarious how it makes me feel the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do
No Man's Sky here, just cruising around, trying to find the best pet to float around on
Horses for courses...
If the game in the article captures what these are about, it didn't do anything for me. Interesting to read, though.
I've enjoyed some games that have a cozy vibe while actually presenting me with puzzles to solve. Monument Valley for example.
I wish I could spend more then 10 minutes playing games; feels like work.
Machinarium did it for me. Immensely atmospheric and relaxing. The soundtrack is John Williams level quality in my opinion. Introduced me to the musician Floex, whos songs I played at my wedding.
I don’t play video game anymore since fatherhood but my 2000 hours of Skyrim would agree with the article.
I find Stardew Valley to be stressful since I keep trying to max things out for the 3 year goal of meeting grandpa and that always stops me from continuing it.
Literally I have a todo list for it.
Absolutely, they helped a TON with my depression and anxiety.
The important thing is to select Story Games, the slower the better that slowly pull you in. Any fast paced game will keep you anxious and won't work.
Some game recommendations that I will make while we are here:
1) Outer Wilds - must play especially for HN people. Great puzzle and exploration game. A game you will never forget.
2) Alan Wake 2 - Insane story and graphics.
3) Day's Gone - really chill zombie game.
This was fantastic, and I didn’t even realise at first I was on a news website. Unfortunately, that became very obvious at the bottom:
> MORE FROM REUTERS GRAPHICS
> Inside North Korea’s vast operation to help Russia’s war on Ukraine
> The Most Daunting Hole at Augusta
> How South Korea's largest and deadliest wildfire spread
> The list of proposed US tariffs
After a whole article about quelling anxiety, perhaps don’t end with links to anxiety-inducing themes?
Wholesome Games has a nice set of social media channels around this stuff, down at the bottom of https://wholesomegames.com
They also publish, but I think they mostly talk about wholesome/cozy/relaxing titles on YT/Bsky/etc.
I'd love to read the article but it doesn't want me to On the subject of cozy games I personally like Viscera Cleanup Detail a lot. I've seen people criticize some of the (arguably) annoying design decisions like bucket dispensers sometimes sending out organs and severed limbs. The way I see it: I'm playing this game for the express purpose of cleaning spaceships and sci-fi laboratories. The game is just giving me more stuff to clean, good! When there is some meta-progression (unlocks, dialogue trees, etc.) I find myself getting stressed over what I can unlock next, or which dialogue tree I have yet to clear. In that way, VCD is perfect because you just pick a map and go. More games should make all of their content available to the player from the start.
Wow, what an interesting piece of journalism, in regards to the presentation. It reminded me of when I saw the NYT’s Snow Fall piece for the first time. At the time, it was an amazing display of cutting edge UI skills that exhibited both skill and restraint. Great storytelling to boot.
I played through the indie game 'Forest's Secret' and its DLC a few years ago, it's a cozy, non-violent, zelda-like game. Definitely recommended.
Websites that hack the natural and expected behaviour of the scroll bar certainly don't.
When TV shows go to Japan and interview people at pachinko parlors and ask why the patrons go there they all say it’s to relieve stress.
Pachinko parlors are noisy, with loud music blasting from speakers in the ceiling being drowned by music blazing from each individual machine, competing with the sound of metal marbles falling.
It’s not what you think of as a relaxing environment.
I don’t think it is cozy video games that quell stress, I think it is the escape that helps manage it. I played a lot of Tetris when I was going through a phase with a lot of stress. It’s pretty intense at the high levels, but it was nice for me at the time. Now that I’m not stressed, I actually find it kinda overwhelming…
Not sure I would call it cozy, but Magic the Gathering (Arena) has played this role for me for a long time. It is probably about the retreat to familiar that helps most of all to supress stress and anxiety, regardless of the type of the game.
Euro truck simulator memories
Is this really so much of a shocker? Video games are awesome. They're one of the best things about living in the information age. In an overcrowded, unequal and stressful time to be alive, it's awesome to have an escape - a portal to another universe that is far more engaging than any other forms of escape that came before it. And far more economical, too.
Hijacking scrolling increases my stress and anxiety
As opposed to overly-engineered websites that hijack [0] scroll-behavior, which only increase anxiety and fury.
ಠ_ŕ˛
All the best,
-HG
[0]: web-designers take-note, the normal term [1] in the field for doing this refers to violent crime. Think on your sins.
I think all games can do that, the type of game you enjoy is highly personal. Not sure why they focus on "cozy" games. Probably because bloody games are still a bit controversial.
Personally I'm relaxed by city/empire builder games. But my bother plays Doom to wind down.
I noticed I need high reflexes games to make my brain rest after work, so I don't agree. It's really hard to shutdown after a day that required a lot of brain power, but high reflexes games do the trick (nine sols, hollow knight come to mind)
truly, playing rdr2 helped me ngl
I think that AmaZoo is a nice little game. https://turbosoda.games/
I'd say the increase in cozy games is more easily attributable to Stardew Valley in 2016. So many of the clones that came out directly resemble SV in progression, style and content.
Also, the site is beautiful. Excellent work.
Webfishing was unironically a game that really helped me. Virtually fishing with random people on the internet brought me so much joy I dont know where I'd be without it.
It was a while before I realized you scroll down to advance the graphics...
As someone who didn’t play many video games but grew up somewhat adjacent to them, I’m just amazed at how much more relaxed I am having gone through that article (experience?) compared to before.
A tried A Short Hike. Games like this make me anxious, actually, because they make me feel like I'm wasting time. But I'm not anxious in general. I guess, it depends on the person.
Very late to the party, but I needed to give Banished a shoutout here, since it hasn't been mentioned before. The music alone is enough to get me to relax.
For me it was going deer hunting in the woods in Oblivion. Maybe it's just something about open world games that allows you to find a quiet corner to yourself.
Are there tools out there to help build these scrolling sites? Works well on my phone and that isn't always true on DDG browser.
Nothing relaxes me like throwing tanks and helicopters into the fire in Warno - a Cold War Combined Arms Real-Time Tactics game
Reminds me of Gathertown, although it felt patently absurd to be using it for actual business meetings.
Reuters realizing in 2025 what gamers knew in 2016. That’s the mainstream media in a nutshell.
When did “cozy” become such a buzzy word? How did that start? That one snuck up on me
Right now I’m playing Sail Forth and it hits that stress reducer for me. It does have combat but totally optional and the exploration and fishing and discovery is so relaxing.
Walden, a game. This is an other calm game, full of nature and simple life.
I quite like Pokemon Go in that way, which also gets you out for a stroll.
Superliminal did this for me recently. Also had me reflect on some things.
Loving Jusant for that reason. Liminal spaces and wonderful music.
IF you have a VR headset, Moss is one of those semi-cozy games.
My girlfriend calls farming vials in Bloodborne knitting.
exactly for this made vortle.com no login, no internet needed, no data collected, no score - just you and the game to de-stress and calm down
Debeaking keeps angry chickens from beaking others.
Can't see a mention of Sable here.
i have always kind of thought that videogames are bad for young adults but the other day i realized that people exposed to certain videogames growing up are much more sophisticated. same with movies. if we could take the violence out of games and movies then they would be a very useful way to supercharge the education and development of young people. if we had movies that werent filled with harmful misinformation… its a great way to augment life experience. a lot of kids would have trouble sitting down to read for two unbroken hours… and the bitrate of movies is much higher
Reuters has good visibility into the state of the world.
Have they seen the writing on the wall, and are now promoting cutesy escapism?
super cute! love pixel games
Valheim
I'm sure walking outside is much better. Or outdoors sports.
Is it just me that finds exploration open world games frustrating? It makes me feel awful having to walk around endlessly to gather resources etc. I prefer linear experiences that don't feel like I'm back to work.
thats gta sa for me xd
This is so relaxing!
Wow. I was not expecting that at all. I wish there were more reporting like this.
I am wondering if an LLM helped put this together for the journalist ? And if yes, how were they able to display all that in a single page, without access to servers, etc?
There is no escaping stress or anxiety. Life is a nightmare, and the best you can do is accept it as an objective fact and try to make it better for others, since you will never be able to make it better for yourself.
I still think video games are a net negative on society. How come so few women play - their lives are so much more balanced and successful - are games a symptom or a cause?
Playing cards. With no devices and screens. Multi-player. Lots of fun.
If it must be computer, then I go for good old Microsoft games - sweekend puzzle, motorbike madness or midtown madness (I have a Win7 PC with no internet). I also enjoy driving around with Forza and enjoying the scenery of the country side.
I can't even dare to look at the title imagery of these new games on xbox while scrolling through list of games on app store. It's gory, weirdness and insanity being portrayed as high quality.
I guess, humanity in the West craved for some excitement in their lives, due to post-war peace time being devoid of any survival struggle. And the media - movies, music, internet - kept on dumping loads of it. Even the music, which is supposed to flow with soft, pleasant and melodious tunes and beats, has turned into a cacophony of loud shouting and hysteric expressions and acts of the artists.
Similar to how a military band is designed to dispense alert and agility, western music appear to have evolved to dispense fear and anxiety which was missing in their daily lives.
Not only that. Lack of such frantic craziness is seen as boring (I never heard of this word boring in my childhood). Slow life in general is being viewed as socially unacceptable. We are frogs in a boiling pot.
You don't have to join the mad crowd running around ferociously. Just sit back, power on your old computer, pull out the internet cable, enjoy the slow, old games.