Cozy game: revision #1

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A **cozy game** (also spelled *cosy game* in Commonwealth English) is a video game oriented around comfort rather than challenge: low stakes, gentle pace, and themes of care, home and community. The label describes a feeling as much as a set of mechanics — Rolling Stone characterizes cozy games as "defined by their ability to learn quickly, low-stakes, casual vibe," often mimicking "familiar, real-life situations,"[^1] while games scholar Conor Mckeown argues they are "defined by what they omit": many remove "the potential for winning or losing entirely."[^2]

The genre's edges are famously blurry. CNN Underscored calls it "a broad genre that encompasses a lot of types of games, from farming sims to city builders, but they all elicit a special feeling that can be hard to explain,"[^3] and PC Gamer reported in 2024 that even the genre's biggest fans cannot agree on a definition — and largely aren't worried about it.[^4] This wiki's own inclusion rule embraces that blurriness; see [[What counts as cozy]].

## Design theory

The genre's foundational design text is a 2017 group report from Project Horseshoe, the annual game-design think tank: *Coziness in Games: An Exploration of Safety, Softness, and Satisfied Needs*.[^5] Its workgroup included designers from across the industry — among them Tanya X. Short (Kitfox Games), Chelsea Howe (Owlchemy Labs) and Daniel Cook (Spry Fox), with facilitator Ron Meiners.[^5]

The report defines coziness as "how strongly a game evokes the fantasy of safety, abundance, and softness."[^5] **Safety** means "an absence of danger and risk," with "no impending loss or threat"; **abundance** means lower-level needs (in Maslow's sense) are "met or being met," signaled through a low-stress, plentiful environment; **softness** covers the gentle aesthetic signals that make a space feel comfortable.[^5] Cook published the workgroup's findings as the essay "Cozy Games" on his blog Lostgarden on 24 January 2018, and the vocabulary spread from there into mainstream games writing.[^6]

## History

Cozy play predates the label. The lineage most often cited runs through Nintendo's [[Animal Crossing (series)|Animal Crossing]], which began in Japan as *Dōbutsu no Mori* ("Animal Forest") on the Nintendo 64 in April 2001 — a game about living gently in a village of animals, released in the twilight of that console's life.[^7]

Two later releases turned a sensibility into a movement. [[Stardew Valley]] (26 February 2016), built single-handedly by Eric Barone, showed that a small, warm-hearted farming RPG could reach tens of millions of players.[^8] And [[Animal Crossing: New Horizons]] launched on 20 March 2020 — into the first weeks of global COVID-19 lockdowns — selling 11.77 million copies in twelve days, which Nintendo called the best start ever for a Switch title.[^9] Rolling Stone's retrospective ties the genre's mainstream surge to that pandemic moment, noting video game usage rose 75 percent during 2020.[^1] The [[Wholesome Games]] curation project (founded 2019) held its first Wholesome Direct showcase on 26 May 2020, giving the gentle end of indie gaming a recurring stage.[^10][^11]

The genre has since matured from trend to fixture. [[Unpacking]] won the publicly voted EE Game of the Year at the 2022 BAFTA Games Awards;[^12] 2024 brought breakout debuts including [[Tiny Glade]] (roughly 616,000 copies in its first month)[^13] and [[Fields of Mistria]] (100,000 downloads in its first early-access week);[^14] and New Horizons' lifetime sales reached 49.91 million by March 2026.[^15]

## Community and audience

Cozy gaming built an unusually visible community culture. By mid-2024 the r/cozygamers subreddit had over 137,000 members, and creator "Cozy K" counted roughly half a million TikTok followers.[^1] A 2025 five-country survey by research firm Sago found the top reasons people play cozy games are switching off from stress and anxiety (53%), playing at one's own pace (52%), and feeling calmer or improving mood (51%).[^16] Games market researcher Bryter assessed in 2026 that "cozy is no longer a side trend — it's a meaningful expression of how gaming culture is changing."[^17]

## Academic study

Scholars have taken up the definitional question directly. A 2025 paper at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences — "Whose Vibe is it Anyway? Negotiating Definitions of Cozy Games" by Kelly Boudreau, Mia Consalvo and Andrew Phelps — concludes that what makes a game cozy is "widely variable, socially constructed, and often personal."[^18] Earlier, Agata Waszkiewicz and Martyna Bakun's "Towards the aesthetics of cozy video games" (*Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds*, 2020) proposed three types of coziness in games depending on its relationship with functionality: coherent, dissonant and situational.[^19]

## See also

- [[Wholesome Games]] — the curation project and showcase
- [[What counts as cozy]] — this wiki's inclusion criteria
- [[Glossary of cozy gaming terms]]
- [[Life simulation game]]

[^1]: CT Jones. ["Why Cozy Gaming Went From Pandemic Stress Release to Thriving Online Community"](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/rs-gaming/what-are-cozy-games-online-community-1235032742/) — Rolling Stone, 4 June 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^2]: Conor Mckeown. ["Cosy gaming: how curling up with Animal Crossing is changing what it means to be a gamer"](https://theconversation.com/cosy-gaming-how-curling-up-with-animal-crossing-is-changing-what-it-means-to-be-a-gamer-196609) — The Conversation, 4 January 2023. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^3]: Carli Velocci. ["The 13 best cozy games for relaxing and stress relief"](https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/electronics/best-cozy-games) — CNN Underscored, November 2023. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^4]: Lauren Morton. ["Even 'cozy' gaming's biggest fans can't decide on its definition, but they aren't worried"](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/life-sim/even-cozy-gamings-biggest-fans-cant-decide-on-its-definition-but-they-arent-worried-theres-a-whole-lot-of-grey-area-and-thats-what-makes-it-interesting/) — PC Gamer, 7 March 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^5]: Project Horseshoe 2017 workgroup. ["Coziness in Games: An Exploration of Safety, Softness, and Satisfied Needs"](https://projecthorseshoe.com/reports/featured/ph17r3.htm) — Project Horseshoe, 2017. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^6]: Daniel Cook. ["Cozy Games"](https://lostgarden.com/2018/01/24/cozy-games/) — Lostgarden, 24 January 2018. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^7]: Tanner Fox. ["The Original Animal Crossing On N64 Is 20 Years Old In Japan Today"](https://www.thegamer.com/original-animal-crossing-n64-20-years-old-japan/) — TheGamer, April 2021. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^8]: ConcernedApe. ["Press"](https://www.stardewvalley.net/press/) — stardewvalley.net. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^9]: Nintendo Co., Ltd. ["Fiscal Year Ended March 2020 — Financial Results Explanatory Material"](https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2020/200507_4e.pdf) — Nintendo Investor Relations, 7 May 2020. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^10]: indienova. ["Healing, Uplifting, and Non-Violent: Exploring Wholesome Games with Founder Matthew Taylor"](https://indienova.com/en/indie-game-news/wholesome-games-matthew-taylor-interview-en/) — indienova. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^11]: Dean Daley. ["'Wholesome Direct' 2020 will showcase over 50 indie games"](https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/05/21/wholesome-direct-2020-50-games/) — MobileSyrup, 21 May 2020. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^12]: EE. ["Unpacking wins the EE Game of the Year Award at the 2022 BAFTA Games Awards"](https://newsroom.ee.co.uk/unpacking-wins-the-ee-game-of-the-year-award-at-the-2022-bafta-games-awards/) — EE Newsroom, 7 April 2022. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^13]: GameDiscoverCo. ["How Tiny Glade 'built' its way to >600k sold in a month!"](https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/how-tiny-glade-built-its-way-to-600k) — GameDiscoverCo newsletter, 29 October 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^14]: Destructoid. ["Fields of Mistria reaches 100,000 downloads a week into its Early Access launch"](https://www.destructoid.com/fields-of-mistria-reaches-100000-downloads-a-week-into-its-early-access-launch/) — Destructoid, 12 August 2024. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^15]: Nintendo Co., Ltd. ["Top Selling Title Sales Units — Nintendo Switch Software"](https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/software/switch.html) — Nintendo Investor Relations (as of 31 March 2026). Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^16]: Sooleen Abbas. ["The Rise of Cozy Gaming Across Borders"](https://sago.com/en/resources/insights/the-rise-of-cozy-gaming-across-borders/) — Sago, 12 September 2025. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^17]: Bryter. ["Cozy games: Why Comfort-first Play is Becoming a Major Force"](https://www.bryter-global.com/blog/the-rise-of-cozy-gaming) — Bryter, 2 June 2026. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^18]: Kelly Boudreau, Mia Consalvo & Andrew Phelps. ["Whose Vibe is it Anyway? Negotiating Definitions of Cozy Games"](https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/a39f3507-2b9f-4971-a3d4-722638ebe0fc) — Proceedings of the 58th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 7 January 2025. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
[^19]: Agata Waszkiewicz & Martyna Bakun. ["Towards the aesthetics of cozy video games"](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Towards-the-aesthetics-of-cozy-video-games-Waszkiewicz-Bakun/4ba3c789810e592526903b64f28a7f39d12c80b9) — Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, vol. 12 no. 3, October 2020. Retrieved 9 July 2026.