It seems like every year there are more and more cozy games to simply vibe with, and one upcoming title with immaculate vibes isWinter Burrow. InWinter Burrow, players take on the role of a mouse moving out of the big city to their childhood burrow in the woods. Although it was supposed to be taken care of and maintained by the player’s aunt, it has clearly fallen on hard times, and players set out to repair their burrow, survive the winter, and explore the big world around them.
To do so, players will need to brave the cold, face off with other woodland critters and bugs, gather resources, make tools, and find out what happened with their aunt. It’s a simple story complementing a simple take on the survival genre, one that would be great to play next to a fireplace while bundled up amid a winter chill. Game Rant recently played a demo ofWinter Burrowat Gamescom, and it went a long way in proving its core conceit of a cozysurvival game.
Repair the Burrow
Repairing the burrow (and later maintaining other burrows) is at the heart ofWinter Burrow’s cozy gameplay loop. We started out needing to find wood to repair our fireplace before also repairing the chair, building a crafting station, and otherwise laying the foundation for our exploration. Players have to brave the winter to find resources, sometimes using an axe to cut up wood, chop down certain flowers, and combine resources to make something new. Of course, it’s cold outside, so the survival element comes in with how players deal with their exhaustion and chill levels. Thankfully, we managed to make a sweater pretty quickly to protect us in our immediate surroundings. Eventually, we were tasked with repairing a bridge, and that’s where the demo ended, leaving us teased with what lies across its way.
A Cozy Game in a Chilly Place
Everything that happened in between was absolutely cozy. We managed to find a camp rather far from the burrow to knock off our chill, found plenty of insects we could fight for resources, and met NPCs like a rather talkative salesman and a rather lazy hedgehog named Moss. Both went a long way in terms of worldbuilding, as Moss told us their partner was missing and asked us to find them, after we completed a different task for them of course. These are but two examples of fun NPCs inWinter Burrowand the results of exploration. Traversing the snow, finding our way around reeds, and always wondering what we would uncover next made the exploration a lot of fun but not necessarily strenuous. Yes, it is a survival game, and yes, we needed to manage our exhaustion and chill. However, those felt like additional features to its exploration instead of limitations.Winter Burrowcombines curiosity with exploration and reward with crafting for aunique cozy game.
At the end of the day,Winter Burrowis a simple game with a simple story to tell, but sometimes those are the most effective stories. The world is a big place, and the players, as a mouse, are but indeed a small mouse. Getting to explore, craft, and survive in the wider world through this lens provides a genuinely curious and cozy experience. On par with its experience is the fact that players will be able to check it out, at no additional cost, whenit launches on Xbox Game Pass in 2025.
