10 Cozy Games That Changed The Genre

Cozy games have practically exploded in popularity and relevance in the last few years. Heightened by stress and the desire to retreat into a nicer, controllable world in 2020, it's now normal to have a simplistic game of choice to unwind with.

Of course, there was never anything wrong with choosing a calmer game to play sometimes. Games like The Sims 3 have earned their legacy by letting you choose how you want to play them. Other games like Sonic Adventure 2 certainly wouldn't be the iconic game it is without the easy-going and adorable Chao Gardens on the side to its platforming action.

Now, though, cozy games have practically become a genre in their own right. If we look back, it's very easy to see how we got to this point with several games paving the way.

10 Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector

Of Course We Had To Start With Cats.

It might be a mobile game, but Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector is the first time I remember the world coming together over something cute, relaxing, and simple. It's a very easy game to get into. You use in-game currency to buy snacks and toys, and place them on your porch and yard wherever you want. Then, you leave the game and come back whenever the thought of it pops into your head. Cats would have appeared to eat the treats and play with the trinkets!

That's really all it took to get something cute when you needed it. Since then, Neko Atsume has left the phone realm and become a VR game, and other titles like Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge and Usagi Shima have brought the idle collector cuteness to other animals. It might not have been the most influential thing in the world, but it feels like a small shift towards the future when looking at it now.

9 Journey

Not At All About The Destination

Suddenly, you're in a cloak, protecting you from the vast heat of the desert that surrounds you. You find someone else against the odds, and you both can't speak to each other. Yet, you walk together. You help each other. This is what Journey is about. This experience has stuck with so, so many players, no matter how many years it's been.

Due to its mysterious and melancholic nature, keeping the game's pace very breezy, many consider Journey to be a cozy game. It might not have a dramatic impact, but I think it's important to speak about it. It's rare that a singular game like this sticks with so many people and makes them bond on its own.

People bond with strangers they've never met, and then think about them for the rest of their lives. Journey is so special that no other game has come to offer a similar experience in the years since, even if it was the inspiration. Some players have felt

Journey is so special that no other game has come to offer a similar experience in the years since, even if it was the inspiration. Some players have felt similar experiences in games like Abzu, but have never come close to resonating as strongly. Journey's developers have gone on to make Sky: Children of the Light, another cozy game that has captured the hearts of all sorts of players over the years.

8 Don't Starve Together

Who Doesn't Love A Bit Of Creepy With Their Cozy?

If I had to pick a game that wasn't Minecraft, because Minecraft's impact speaks for itself, to hold responsible for kicking off playing cozy co-op games with your friends with no pressure, I'd have to go with Don't Starve Together. Don't Starve Together is an incredible game simply because when Klei Entertainment saw players saying, "I love Don't Starve, I wish I could share it with a friend," it made an entire expansion for that.

Don't Starve Together invites you into a procedurally generated world reminiscent of Tim Burton's claymation films. Despite the threat of starvation and your dwindling sanity, Don't Starve Together never really feels like too much. It manages to ride the line of being unsettling during the night and a bit warm during the day. This made it into a great game to play with friends for a fun time and a bit of a challenge.

This unique atmosphere has bled into other cozy co-op games, yet its creepy art style and mechanics help it stick out from the crowd it almost silently pioneered. Because of Don't Starve Together in 2016, games like Among Us could be brought to greater heights, thanks to how co-op across the world with a friend was made a casual, everyday occurrence beforehand.

7 Animal Crossing

It Really Got With The Times

If Don't Starve Together silently took its flowers for its impact on multiplayer gaming, then Animal Crossing molded itself to fit cozy gaming like cement fills a pothole. You can't mention cozy gaming without mentioning Animal Crossing.

I've watched the Animal Crossing series since I first rented the GameCube entry at a local shop back in the day. Getting off the town train and meeting our animal neighbors was a life-changing event, and none of us ever knew it.

With each installment, Animal Crossing grew more and more. Eventually, the day came when people were actually asking Nintendo to release Animal Crossing: New Horizons early because it was set to be - and became - a comfortable game where we could change our environment when going outside wasn't in our best interests.

New Horizons in concept, premise, and every mechanic give all the control to the player, letting them build their dream island from the furniture to even what sits inside their villager's houses. Now, 25 years since its original release, Animal Crossing has become the unexpected textbook for games like Cult of the Lamb, Cozy Grove, and practically every cozy game since 2002.

6 Harvest Moon

Gaslighting Players Into Thinking Farming is Relaxing For Thirty Years

I was first introduced to Harvest Moon through Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. It says a lot about how that game came out at the right time when I rented it, and bought it later, just like I did with Animal Crossing. The Wonderful Life games were particularly easy-going and relaxing, and it was fun to take care of my farm for days while waiting to play Animal Crossing again tomorrow.

Little did I know that Harvest Moon had been around for a long time, and so many players had already been enamored by its time management formula. A Wonderful Life may be one of the more forgiving Harvest Moon games, but it certainly helped cultivate assigning farming simulators as "cozy." It's part of why farming simulator mechanics belong in all sorts of games these days, like Tales of the Shire and Starsand Island.

Considering Harvest Moon's age and impact, it deserves a spot on this list, even if other deliberate farming simulators have made bigger waves. In the big era of beat-em-up and run-and-gun games, Harvest Moon was always there to let you rest your weary gamer head at least a little.

5 Genshin Impact

Say What You Want, But The World is Gorgeous

Look. I was an early adopter back when Genshin Impact came out, and I think I speak for all of us when I say no one expected just how huge Genshin would become in the next six years. It was an ambitious gacha game back then, and it's certainly jaw-dropping how big it's become now. The conversations around gacha games have changed drastically since 2020, and Chinese developers now have a better chance of making it big in important markets overseas, like the Western side of gaming. Both have Genshin to thank.

Outside of Genshin Impact's gacha mechanics, the world it presents players is phenomenal to look at and exist in. Moving the characters, exploring the world, and even attacking enemies just somehow feel nice and comforting. It helps that the game really isn't that hard to get through if you know what you're doing.

I firmly believe that the atmosphere and worldbuilding around it are part of the reason so many players keep coming back, playing regularly, and pulling for these characters. When it all feels great outside gathering and spending Primogems, it's a good game to seek comfort in. That's why so many other games since, including HoYoverse's own Honkai Star Rail, emulate it to try and capture that success.

4 The Sims

They Can Have Perfectly Comfortable Lives, If You Want Them To

The Sims sits as one of the pillars of how chaotic player choice can be. Players joke about drowning Sims by removing the pool ladder, and them spontaneously combusting for a reason. At the same time, it's also a great game to wind down with because not every day with your Sims is wild and out-there. A good number of Sims players tend to just leave the game running and let their creations do whatever.

The idea of having a controllable world you can design is an integral part of so many cozy games, and that comes from The Sims' legacy. They may not take direct inspiration from The Sims, but if you went back in time and deleted The Sims entirely, it might be surprising how many games went with it when you got back.

Cozy titles like inZOI and other daring life sims like the upcoming Sunkissed City certainly wouldn't be the same without it. Even games from other genres wouldn't be here without The Sims to encourage them one way or another. That's how important it is as a whole.

3 My Time At Portia

Can You Fix It? Yes, You Can!

My Time At Sandrock is easily in many players' top five personal cozy game lists, but you can't talk about My Time At Sandrock without discussing its predecessor, My Time At Portia. Everything that makes Sandrock so special, like its premise, mechanics, and more, all appeared in Portia first.

After the world was destroyed and life began again, you inherited your own workshop in the city-state of, you guessed it, Portia. The town is independent and rather small, and because of that, it falls to you to help it grow. Along the way, you get to encounter all sorts of different people and problems, and learn about the world as you do.

While My Time At Sandrock has definitely had a larger impact, My Time At Portia is one big reason why a lot of cozy games dare to be open-ended. Portia certainly made a big statement about how big cozy games can be and how far they can reach, and the changes in direction with upcoming titles are still being felt today.

2 PowerWash Simulator

Literally Wash Your Troubles Away

Out of everything on this list, PowerWash Simulator might be the newest game, but it's also one of the most influential. It's what it says on the tin: it's a game where you pressure wash things. You pressure wash cars, houses, playgrounds, the works. The game focuses on the washing and the people you're washing for, over everything else. The resulting game is a relaxing experience of cleaning things at your own pace, your own way.

PowerWash Simulator is so relaxing that there's been a study by Oxford University that proves it makes players happier. It's brought out a side of players where fixing up, decorating, cleaning, and even more things can be relaxing for them. Now that PowerWash Simulator 2 was released last year, cozy games are stronger than ever, with cleaning leading the charge.

1 Stardew Valley

The Cozy Game To End All Cozy Games

I really couldn't do this list without Stardew Valley. I just couldn't. Harvest Moon may have been Stardew Valley's inspiration, but Harvest Moon has left its own mark that Stardew Valley has practically eclipsed. The way many players seek out and crave cozy games starts here, and the newest generation of pixel art games with farming mechanics are regularly called "Stardewlikes." It speaks for itself.

Hardly anybody expected Stardew Valley to get as big as it got, and it holds the title of "indie darling" for a reason. The way that players have multiple ways they can raise their farm opens up the genre with time and inventory management. It helps make Stardew feel uniquely welcoming, where Harvest Moon games can be a bit demanding.

Stardew Valley used to feel very demanding, but the updates the game has gotten over the years — and that it's still getting — have changed it. Starting a new playthrough feels easier now than it ever did before, so I highly recommend diving into Stardew Valley if you need something cozy and it didn't resonate with you before.