It’s Time To Rethink Cozy Games

Like so many technological and cultural innovations, video games went through a phase of being blamed for all manner of society’s ills as they became more popular. But as all but the most committed opponents gave up on the idea that video games might cause violence, a possibly more productive question has emerged — in what ways might playing games actually be good for us? At the same time, cozy games, with their emphasis on the calm and cute, have grown as one of the most obvious places where the psychological benefits of gaming might be realized, if the research backs the idea.

“When it comes to science, we’re most worried about harm before we start talking about benefits,” psychologist Sarah Hays, Psy.D., a program manager for the mental health nonprofit Take This, tells Inverse. “So a lot more research has been done on the harms.”

The potential psychological benefits of video games are a fairly new area of study, but the work that’s been done there does look promising. In one of the best-known studies of its kind, researchers from universities in Canada and the United States found that playing Thatgamecompany’s Flower produced effects almost identical to practicing mindfulness meditation among 80 students.

Similar studies show that playing video games can reduce stress, increase positive emotions, and reduce feelings of loneliness. But while archetypal cozy games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons have shown positive benefits in these studies, so have (more violent and challenging) games like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy titles, and Team Fortress 2. So while cozy games are often presented as the more relaxing, low-stress side of the gaming world, are they actually any more cozy than curling up with a difficult sidescroller or arduous RPG? And what even is a cozy game anyway?

Why “Cozy” Matters

“Coziness is an adjective, not a genre,” Chelsea Howe, chief product officer at Hello Kitty Island Adventure developer Sunblink, tells Inverse.

Howe is co-author of Coziness in Games: An Exploration of Safety, Softness, and Satisfied Needs, a 2017 paper that set out to understand what makes a game cozy and how designers can add more of that coziness into their games. According to Howe, the three pillars of cozy games are safety (absence of danger), abundance (easy access to basic needs like shelter), and, what Howe calls “the squishiest” of the criteria, softness (comforting aesthetics).

Of course, deciding what fits that definition isn’t as easy as going down a checklist. A game could be aesthetically cozy and offer a sense of safety, but still pressure players to log in every day or miss out on rewards, for instance. And since cozy games have become so popular, some developers are inclined to lean on the parts of them that are most likely to grab people’s attention rather than giving players a holistic experience.

“A cozy game [gives] you space to breathe, to feel an absence of threat where you can reset your nervous system.”

“Things that appeal to base instincts will always get more attention than appealing to high-level needs like community, self-worth, sense of belonging,” Howe says. “Over time that can become really negative and toxic. It emphasizes the parts of your brain that focus on lower-level needs and allows the ones that actually lead toward a satisfying life to wither.”

In other words, it’s not just about chasing good feelings.

“Being on a dopamine rush is a positive feeling, but that just leads to a dopamine addiction where if you’re not scrolling on your phone, you feel sh*t,” she says. “The goal with a cozy game is giving you space to breathe, to feel an absence of threat where you can reset your nervous system.”

The Not-So-Cozy Joys of Wanderstop

Safety, abundance, and softness abound in 2025’s Wanderstop, a game that sneakily deconstructs what it means to be cozy. In the game, you play Alta, a gladiator who finds herself unable to hold her sword after a series of crushing defeats ended her perfect streak in the arena. In search of a trainer, she passes out in the woods and awakens to meet Boro, the cheerful owner of the Wanderstop tea shop who carries her to safety and suggests she help run the shop for a while while she recovers. The idea came from designer Davey Wreden’s own experience with burnout, and it’s immediately apparent that that’s what Alta is dealing with. Going by most definitions, and the game’s Steam tags, it’s an emblematic cozy game.

Karla Zimonja, director of Gone Home and writer of Wanderstop, disagrees.

“Cozy games are not my vibe at all,” Zimonja tells Inverse. “Stardew Valley stresses me the f*ck out. I start playing, and I’m just like, ‘I’ve already got a job; I don’t need another one.’”

“Stardew Valley stresses me the f*ck out.”

Wanderstop is a narrative game above all else, and while its restless protagonist Alta is decidedly un-cozy, following her story can be another way into the feeling of community and belonging. That sense of belonging is what Howe says the best cozy games aim for — but Zimonja points out that while such connection creates comfort, the pursuit of growth and progress inherent in most cozy games do not.

In Wanderstop, there’s friction to the emotions being explored. Alta is tense, lashing out at the people around her while struggling with her own feelings of fear and burnout. She is, as Zimonja says, “not a cozy time” and the game challenges you to stick around through the unpleasantness of her emotional journey.

Catharsis as Coziness

You might not associate cozy games with friction or unpleasant feelings, but there’s reason to believe they can actually promote the supposed benefits of the genre more than mere pleasure-seeking or progress for its own sake. While focusing on what feels good in the moment can be stimulating, sitting with discomfort may be more helpful in the long run.

“I thought this was just going to be a rainbows and sunshine Hello Kitty game ...”

“We had a storyline in Hello Kitty Island Adventure about trying to repair a friendship, and for several updates, a quest line on end on, it’s not going to happen right now,” says Howe. “The character needs space. And you had to be OK with that. We got a lot of feedback from our community that was like, ‘I thought this was just going to be a rainbows and sunshine Hello Kitty game, and you’ve done more on positive conflict handling than I see in most games.’ That was really meaningful for us, because the ultimate goal of coziness is you can be your whole self here and know that you’re safe and that you can process and work through your feelings.”

That’s consistent with research showing that parasocial relationships — one-sided emotional connections like the kind a viewer has for a performer — can help fulfill some emotional and social needs, even if the relationship is with a fictional character. That seems to remain true even if the connections you’re making aren’t always pleasant.

“There are phenomenally cozy spaces within some of the most intense games, like the moment around the bonfire when you’re looking out at a threat,” Howe says. “Contrast can be a huge part of creating coziness. And if I know that I am safe and I know that there’s so much awfulness out there, fantastic.”

Much like the way that some people turn to horror movies for comfort, the feeling of vanquishing a difficult boss and returning to a bonfire in Dark Souls can offer a very different sort of coziness that comes from knowing you’ve gotten yourself out of danger — at least for now.

“Right now we need kind, intelligent, creative solutions.”

“There’s so much ambiguity in the world around us right now,” Hays says. “The world’s in a political hellfire. It’s stressful. So being able to take a break and go into a world where we know what we need to do, who to talk to if we don’t, and that we have a choice is immensely comforting.”

And if coziness can come from putting in the work to claim some control over your feelings in a hostile world, is it any wonder the popularity of cozy games is soaring today?

“When people are in an intense space, they’re not going to be able to think kindly and intelligently and creatively,” Howe says. “And right now we need kind, intelligent, creative solutions. And if a game can help you relax enough to be like ‘OK, I’m going to call my senator or I’m going to go march,’ that’s what’s meaningful. I think we need to give people spaces where they can be human again and not just these threatened, terrified little creatures.”